Felix Holt, the Radical. George Eliot

room with him – if he had really cared for her opinion – if he had been what she had dreamed he would be in the eyes of those people who had made her world – if all the past could be dissolved, and leave no solid trace of itself – mighty ifs that were all impossible – she would have tasted some joy; but now she began to look back with regret to the days when she sat in loneliness among the old drapery, and still longed for something that might happen. Yet, save in a bitter little speech, or in a deep sigh, heard by no one besides Denner, she kept all these things hidden in her heart, and went out in the autumn sunshine to overlook the alterations in the pleasure-grounds very much as a happy woman might have done. One day, however, when she was occupied in this way, an occasion came on which she chose to express indirectly a part of her inward care.