The fear and shame of it haunted her like a nightmare ; she shrank every morning from the thought of all the mail that was coming that day , fearing that there would be an angry , puzzled letter from Gilbert . He must certainly soon hear of Anna 's marriage ; he would see it in the home paper , other correspondents in Exeter would write him of it . Alma grew sick at heart thinking of the complications in front of her . When Gilbert 's letter came she left it for a whole day before she could summon courage to open it . But it was a harmless epistle after all ; he had not yet heard of Anna 's marriage . Alma had at first no thought of answering it , yet her fingers ached to do so . Now that Anna was gone , her loneliness was unbearable . 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 XXXXX herself a strange undercurrent of relief at the thought that Gilbert could never marry Anna now !
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