She realized how much Gilbert 's letters had meant to her , even when written to another woman . She could bear her life well enough , she thought , if she only had his letters to look forward to . No more letters came from Gilbert for six weeks . Then came one , alarmed at Anna 's silence , anxiously asking the reason for it ; Gilbert had heard no word of the marriage . He was working in a remote district where newspapers seldom penetrated . He had no other correspondent in Exeter now ; except his mother , and she , not knowing that he supposed himself engaged to Anna had forgotten to mention it . Alma answered that letter . 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 XXXXX sleep many a night in her repentance , but she kept on writing to Gilbert , for all that .
Besides at by except for in into of that to