Her agitation--for it had not diminished--was very still, very deep.

What had happened was something that for a week past her imagination had been going forward to meet; but here, when it came, she stopped--that sublime principle somehow broke down.

The working of this young lady's spirit was strange, and I can only give it to you as I see it, not hoping to make it seem altogether natural.

Her imagination, as I say, now hung back: there was a last vague space it couldn't cross--a dusky, uncertain tract which looked ambiguous and even slightly treacherous, like a moorland seen in the winter twilight.

But she was to cross it yet..