And then a strange thing happened to her.

Hedworth was called to Switzerland by his mother, who fell ill. His
parting with Edith occupied several hours, and during the three or four
days following, his affianced protested that she was inconsolable. But
his letters were frequent and characteristic, and she began to enjoy the
new phase of their intercourse: the excitement of waiting for the post,
the delight which the first glimpse of the envelope on her
breakfast-tray gave her, the novelty of receiving a fragment of him
daily, which her imagination could expand into his hourly life and
thoughts. The season was over, and she had little else to do. She
expected him back at any moment, and preferred to await his arrival in
town.

One evening she was sitting in her bedroom thinking of him. The night
was hot and the windows were open. It was very late. She had been
staring down upon the dark mass of tree-tops in the Park,
recapitulating, phase by phase, the growth of her feeling for Hedworth.
Suddenly it occurred to her that it bore a strong racial resemblance to
her first passion, and, being too intelligent to have escaped the habit
of analysis, she dug up the old love and dissected it. It had been
better preserved than she would have thought, for it did not offend her
sense; and she gave an hour to the office. She went back to her first
moment of conscious interest in the hero of her tragedy, galvanized the
thrill she had felt when he entered her presence, her restlessness and
doubt and jealousy when he was away, or appeared to neglect her; the
recognition that she was in the hard grasp of a passion in which she had
had little faith; the sweetness and terror of it, the keen delight in
the sense of danger. There had been weeks of companionship before he had