gushed freely and healthfully after her last leave-taking with
Frederic--the looked farewell, which was all Winston's surveillance
had granted them. She had been wounded then by her brother's
singular want of tact or feeling. She had not the spirit to resent
anything to-night, unless it were that God had made and suffered to
live a being so wretched and useless as herself. She supposed it was
wicked--but she did not care! She ought to be resigned to the
mysterious dispensations of Providence--that was the prescribed
phraseology of pious people. She had heard the cant times without
number. What more would they have than her utter destitution of love
and bliss? Was she not miserable enough to satisfy the sternest
believer in purgatorial purification? to appease the wrath even of
Him who had wrought her desolation? It must be the judgment of a
retributive Deity upon her idolatrous affection that she was
bearing--her worship of Frederic. Yes, she had loved him; she loved
him now better than she did anything else upon earth--better than
she did anything in Heaven.

In the partial insanity of her woe and despair, she lifted her gray
face and vacant eyes to the vast, empty vault, beyond which dwelt
her Maker afar off, and said the words aloud--spat them at Him
through hard, ashy lips.

"I love him! I love him! You have taken him from me--but I will love
him for all that!"

Heaven--or Fate--her blasphemous mood did not distinguish the one
from the other--was a robber. Her brother was pitiless as the death
that would not answer to her call. Between them she was bereaved.