There was not only nothing nice, there was nothing definite at all to remember, only a great many years that had passed along and were now finished, leaving only the remnants of themselves — herself, Hubert, the furniture; even the plants in the garden only seemed to hold their position in order to mark the shabbiness of time. All the things that she had collected together and arranged about the house could blow away, or fall into a pitiful heap, if it were not that the walls of the house were attached on both sides to the walls of the neighboring houses. There was nothing in sight that rested her eyes and nothing in her mind except the realization that John was gone, and the necessity of obeying the dictates of that realization in order to continue, even for a little while longer, her flight from it. The realization badgered her, and she had to obey it and at the same time pretend she didn’t notice it. There was only one time of day when she ignored it, when it was weakest and she was strongest, when they first woke up in the morning, she and it, and it barely stirred, and what it told her then was that she should go back to sleep at once and not wake up at all. But she ignored it then, because it was a matter of pride with her to be up and dressed and downstairs before Hubert opened his eyes, and to have his breakfast ready and waiting for him and part of her housework done by the time he came down to the kitchen.

It was terrible having nobody to complain to; not that she had anything actual to complain about, but it was terrible having no one to talk to. John had always been a great confidant, and the Blessed Virgin had been a great consolation to Mrs. Derdon all her life, the One she had always turned to for help and advice and understanding, but she could hardly turn to the Blessed Virgin now, when it was the Blessed Virgin who had taken John away. It was not the Blessed Virgin herself who had taken John away but his own devotion to the Blessed Virgin, but it all amounted to the same thing in the end, and between the two of them she felt she was left out and left behind.