She told herself recklessly that she would keep on writing to him until he found out . She would lose his friendship anyhow , when that occurred , but meanwhile she would have the letters a little longer . She could not learn to live without them until she had to . The correspondence slipped back into its old groove . The harassed look which Alma 's face had worn , and which Exeter people had attributed to worry over Anna , disappeared . She did not even feel lonely , and reproached herself for lack of proper feeling in missing Anna so little . Besides , to her horror and dismay , she detected in herself a strange undercurrent of relief at the thought that Gilbert could never marry Anna now ! She could not understand it . Had not that marriage been her dearest wish for years ? Why then should she feel this strange gladness at the impossibility of its fulfilment ? Altogether , Alma feared that her condition of mind and morals must be sadly askew . Perhaps , she thought mournfully , this perversion of proper feeling was her punishment for the deception she had practised . She had deliberately done evil that good might come , and now the very imaginations of her heart were stained by that evil . Alma cried herself to sleep many a night in her repentance , but she kept on writing to Gilbert , for all that . The winter passed , and the spring and summer waned , and Alma 's outward life flowed as smoothly as the currents of the seasons , broken only by vivid eruptions from Anna , who came over often from East Exeter , glorying in her young matronhood , `` to cheer Alma up . '' Alma , so said Exeter people , was becoming unsociable and old maidish . She lost her liking for company , and seldom went anywhere among her neighbours . Her once frequent visits across the yard to chat with old Mrs. Murray became few and far between . She could not bear to hear the old lady talking about Gilbert , and she was afraid that some day she would be told that he was coming home . Gilbert 's home-coming was the nightmare dread that darkened poor Alma 's whole horizon .
* * * * * One October day , two years after Gilbert 's departure , Alma , standing at her window XXXXX the reflected glow of a red maple outside , looked down the lane and saw him striding up it !
about across as at by for in into that to