The Interval Before The Marriage

Maddy never knew how she lived through those bright, autumnal days,
when the gorgeous beauty of decaying nature seemed so cruelly to mock
her anguish. As long as Guy was there, breathing the same air with
herself, she kept up, vaguely conscious of a shadowy hope that
something would happen without her instrumentality, something to ease
the weight pressing so hard upon her. But when she heard that he had
really gone, that a line had been received from him after he was on
board the steamer, all hope died out of her heart, and had it been
right she would have prayed that she might die and forget how utterly
miserable she was.

At last there came to her three letters, one from Lucy, one from the
doctor, and one from Guy himself. Lucy's she opened first, reading of
the sweet girl's great happiness in seeing her darling boy again, of
her sorrow to find him so thin, and pale, and changed, in all save his
extreme kindness to her, his careful study of her wants, and evident
anxiety to please her in every respect. On this Lucy dwelt, until
Maddy's heart seemed to leap up and almost turn over in its casing, so
fiercely it throbbed and ached with anguish. She was out in the
beechen woods when she read the letter, and laying her face in the
grass she sobbed as she had never sobbed before.