But now they fell away from me at sight of the emptiness of life . The emptiness ! Ah , it was from that I shrank . I could have faced pain and anxiety and heartbreak undauntedly , but I could not face that terrible , yawning , barren emptiness . I put my hands over my eyes to shut it out , but it pressed in upon my consciousness insistently , and would not be ignored longer . The moment when a woman realizes that she has nothing to live for -- neither love nor purpose nor duty -- holds for her the bitterness of death . She is a brave woman indeed who can look upon such a prospect unquailingly , and I was not brave . I was weak and timid . Had not Father often laughed mockingly at me because of it ? It was three weeks since Father had died -- my proud , handsome , unrelenting old father , whom I had loved so intensely and who had never loved me . I had always accepted this fact unresentfully and unquestioningly , but it had steeped my whole life in its tincture of bitterness . Father had never forgiven me for two things . I had cost my mother 's life and I was not a son to perpetuate the old name and carry on the family feud with the Frasers . I was a very lonely child , with no playmates or companions of any sort , and my girlhood was lonelier still . The only passion in my life was my love for my father . I would have done and suffered anything to win his affection in return . But all I ever did win was an amused tolerance -- and I was grateful for that -- almost content . It was much to have something to love and be permitted to love it . If I had been a beautiful and spirited girl I think Father might have loved me , but I was neither . At first I did not think or care about my lack of beauty ; then one day I was alone in the beech wood ; I was trying to disentangle my skirt which had caught on some thorny underbrush .
A young man came around the curve XXXXX the path and , seeing my predicament , bent with murmured apology to help me .
At If about from of over since to upon with