The Interloper by Violet Jacob

THERE are some periods in life when the heart, from very excess of / misery, finds a spurious relief; when pain has so dulled the nerves, / that, hoping nothing, fearing nothing, we sink into an endurance that / is not far from peace.

Thus it was with Cecilia Raeburn. When the vault in the little cemetery / between Morphie House and Morphie Kirk had been closed over Lady Eliza, / Robert brought her and all her belongings to Fullarton, in accordance / with a promise he had made at the bedside of his friend. She went with / him passively, once that the coffin had been taken away, for the house, / after the gloom and silence of its drawn blinds, was beginning to / resume its original look and the sight hurt her. She had been uprooted / many times since her early youth, and, like a wayfarer, she must take / the road again. Her last rest had continued for fourteen happy years / whose happiness made it all the harder to look forward. Her next would / be Fullarton, and, after that, possibly -- probably, wherever the solid / heir to the house of Fordyce should pitch his tent. But a year was a / respite, for who knew what might happen in a year? He might transfer / his unwelcome attentions to someone else, or death, even, might step in / to save her; she had just seen how near he could creep without sign or / warning. She would not look forward, but, in her secret heart, she / could not banish the faint hope that Gilbert might come back.