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Every morning now, as soon as she had risen, she felt impelled by a powerful desire to pray to God and obtain from Him a little relief and consolation.

Then she knelt before a tall oak crucifix, Olivier’s gift, a rare gift discovered by him, and with closed lips, imploring with the voice of the …

Time was, like everyone else, when she had some notion of the passing years and of the changes they bring. Like everyone else she had said, she had told herself, every winter, every spring, and every summer, “I’ve changed so much since last year.” But ever beautiful, with a somewhat varying beauty,…

These thoughts haunted her, spoiled everything she might have relished, turned into grief everything that would have given her joy, left her no pleasure, no contentment, no gaiety intact. She was forever trembling with an exasperated need to shake off the burden of misery that crushed her, for with…

A stranger! He himself! Olivier! He spoke to her as formerly, with the same words, the same voice, the same tones. And yet there was something new between them now, something inexplicable, intangible, invincible, almost nothing, that “almost nothing” which causes a sail to drift away when the wind …

They walked rapidly through the crowd that at five o’clock follows the summer evenings. Men turned around to look at Annette and whispered indistinct words of admiration as they passed. It was the first time since her mourning, since black was adding that brilliancy to her daughter’s beauty, that t…