This distressed me , but I could not help it . I wished to think of her as kind and loving , but I could remember only the pride and coldness with which she had crushed out my new-born happiness . Yet I felt no anger or resentment towards her for what she had done . I knew she had meant it for the best -- my best . It was only that she was mistaken . And then , a month after she had died , Hugh Blair came to me and asked me to be his wife . He said he had always loved me , and could never love any other woman . All my old love for him reawakened . I wanted to say yes -- to feel his strong arms about me , and the warmth of his love enfolding and guarding me . In my weakness I yearned for his strength . But there was my promise to Hester -- that promise give by her deathbed . I could not break it , and I told him so . It was the hardest thing I had ever done . He did not go away quietly this time . He pleaded and reasoned and reproached . Every word of his hurt me like a knife-thrust . But I could not break my promise to the dead . If Hester had been living I would have braved her wrath and her estrangement and gone to him . But she was dead and I could not do it . Finally he went away in grief and anger .
That was three weeks ago -- and now I sat alone in the moonlit rose-garden and wept XXXXX him .
If about after for in like of that to towards