Alas! then Zilda knew how far she had travelled along a flowery path which, as it now seemed to her, led to nowhere.  It was not that she had wanted to marry Gilby; she had not thought of that as possible; it was only that her whole nature summed itself up in an ardent desire that things should be as they had been, that he should come there once a week, and talk politics with her father and other men, and set the boys jumping, and eat the muffins he had taught her to make for his tea.  And if this might not be, she desired above all else to see him again, to have one more look at him, one more smile from him of which she could take in the whole value, knowing it to be the last.  How carelessly she had allowed him to go, supposing that he would return!  It was not her wish to express her affection or sorrow in any way; it was not her nature to put her emotions into words; but ah, holy saints! just to see him again, and at least take leave of him with her eyes!

It was very sad that he should simply cease to come, yet that she knew was just what was natural; a man does not bid adieux to a railway station, and Zilda knew that she was, as it were, only part of the station furniture.  She resented nothing; she had nothing to resent.

So the winter came again, and Christmas, and again the days grew longer over the snowfields.  Zilda always looked for the sunsets now, for she had been taught that they were beautiful.  She cultivated geraniums and petunias in pots at her windows, just as she had done for many winters, but she would stop oftener to admire the flowers now.

The men had taken again to congregating in the hot close bar-room, or huddling together in their buffalo coats, smoking in the outer air.  Zilda looked at the wood pile, from which no one jumped now, with weary eyes.  It had grown intolerable to her that now no one ever mentioned Gilby; she longed intensely to hear his name or to speak it.  She dared not mention him gravely, soberly, because she was conscious of her secret which no one suspected.  But it was open to her to revive the mimicry.  ‘Voici Monsieur Geelby,’ she would cry, and pass along the station platform with consequential gait.  A great laugh would break from the station loungers.  ‘Encore,’ they cried, and Zilda gave the encore.

There was only one other relief she found from the horrible silence which had settled down upon her life concerning the object of her affection.  At times when she lay awake in the quiet night, or at such times as she found herself within the big stone church of St. Armand, she prayed that the good St. Anne would intercede for her, that she might see ‘Monsieur Geelby’ once more.