Dark, terrible sentences thus uttered in the night-time without the confession that gives breaking hearts relief; for, although she sobbed out these words in her anguish and delirium, the broken sentences were all the confession that she made. Whatever might be the weight that was resting on her spirit, it was evident then and through succeeding days, that with all the strength that was left to her she was determined to bear that weight alone. CHAPTER XXVI IN WINTER NIGHTS BUT, meanwhile, the village had recovered from its wonder to become aware of a deeper mystery, and its astonishment and gossip had only subsided to give place in their turn to a more absorbing interest. For it is pleasant to find some topic which may serve for conversation through the long winter evenings whilst we sit beside the fire. Certainly, if poor Annie’s misery had been only that common story--that too often repeated story all villages know so well--it could but have served to make a nine-days’-gossip, and even ill-natured exultation must in time have died away. Her persistent silence, however, gave rise to other talk, it seemed like a suggestion of some mystery; and floating ideas that could be scarce expressed in words began to rise and to hover round her name. The most likely and probable of the suggestions that were made was that she was attempting to screen some village lad, for to all who knew Jenny Salter it could not appear surprising that her daughter should have inherited a piteous faithfulness. There were some rumours that spoke of ‘a gentleman,’ but they were but rumours and had no support in facts. And, meanwhile, thus developed into a living mystery, poor Annie lived her secluded life at home, rarely leaving the cottage even to enter its strip of garden, or to go through the gate into the Thackbusk fields. She continued altered; she remained wan, gentle, patient, as one on whose head perpetual sorrow rests; her old pride and fierceness did not flash for an instant to disturb the habitual sadness of her face. And yet to a close observer there must have been visible in her eyes a look of yearning, a strange expression suggestive of some unsatisfied desire, suggestive also of the possibility that her disposition was still not without fever or perhaps delirium. If she were waiting for tidings none seemed to come to her, and the slow days passed on towards the closing of the year.