Jenny Pendean and his mind was deeply preoccupied with her. Indeed,
apart from the daily toll of work, she filled it to the exclusion of
every other personal consideration. He longed unspeakably to see her
again, for though he had corresponded during the progress of his
inquiries and kept her closely informed of everything that he was
doing, the excuse for these communications no longer existed. She
had acknowledged every letter, but her replies were brief and she
had given him no information concerning herself, or her future
intentions, though he had asked her to do so. One item of
information only had she vouchsafed and he learned that she was
finishing the bungalow to her husband's original plan and then
seeking a possible customer to take over her lease. She wrote:

"I cannot see Dartmoor again, for it means my happiest as well
as my most unhappy hours. I shall never be so happy again and,
I hope, never suffer so unspeakably as I have during the recent
past."

He turned over this sentence many times and considered the weight of
every word. He concluded from it that Jenny Pendean, while aware
that her greatest joys were gone forever, yet looked forward to a
time when her present desolation might give place to a truer
tranquility and content.

The fact that this should be so, however, astonished Brendon. He
judged her words were perhaps ill chosen and that she implied a
swifter return to peace than in reality would occur. He had guessed
that a year at least, instead of merely these four months, must pass
before her terrible sorrow could begin to dim. Indeed he felt sure
of it and concluded that he was reading an implication into this