Anna's decision to move back into the main building the next day hit him like a blow. It wasn't what he wanted. The last year of living together in the cottage had given him a certain closeness and warmth that he had never known in all the years of darkness and loneliness. But now this time seemed to be coming to an end, and he could not understand the reasons that moved Anna to do so. She explained to him that it would be better now if Edna had left so hastily. That she just had to take care of her ladyship. That it took too much time if she still had to walk to the cottage in the evening and morning. John shook his head uncomprehendingly. He had offered her his help, but she had refused.

While she was packing, he was standing in the doorway. He felt so helpless, and it was the fear of alienation that tormented him—the fear that he had lost something in Anna that he couldn't get back.

"I don't understand you," he said quietly, while his hands were involuntarily clenched into fists. "You are all I have left, Anna. Everything I ever wanted but never dreamed I could get. Just tell me what's going on, what needs to change, what I need to change. But please stay in the cottage," he pleaded.

Anna looked at him now with a mixture of desperation and tenderness. "You don't have to change anything, John," she whispered. "It's just the best at the moment. For everyone."

He felt like he was drowning in a storm of feelings and fears, and every answer Anna gave him pulled him deeper into the vortex.

"I... I can't do without you," he said finally, and his voice broke. "I've never really had a place in the world, Anna. But you made me feel like I was worth something. And now... Now you're about to leave me again."

Anna lowered her gaze, and for a moment John had the feeling that she wanted to say something. But she did not speak. Instead, she took her bag and stood up.

John stood frozen and watched her walk out of the cottage. A deep pain ran through him when he realized that the woman he loved so much was moving further and further away from him. The darkness he had known for so long seemed to fall over him now. Was that really the end of their journey together?

Two weeks later

Life in the cottage had become quieter now that Anna had gone. Bates spent the days throwing himself into his work and spending the hours in seclusion. But it was no longer any comfort for him. Every task, every movement reminded him of what he had lost, and the pain grew stronger.

He was no longer the man he had been years ago. The painful memories of his past and the burden of his actions weighed heavily on him. But Anna had always been more than just a light in the darkness to him, she was the one person who had freed him from the downward spiral of his life. But now that she was moving further and further away from him, everything he had built seemed to be shattering.

The contact between him and Anna had become sporadic. Every morning, he stood on the landing and waited for her to come downstairs. But even that seemed to be too much for her: "I don't know why you always wait for me. There's no need." John looked at her lovingly: "Because I want to be the first to greet you every morning." Anna stopped in front of him, but did not look at him: "Well, as I said, there ́s no need." "There's every need and I will keep it up until you explain what was gone wrong between us," her husband looked at her seriously." My life is perfect and then in the space of one day, it is nothing. To me, that requires an explanation." Anna was silent and walked past him into Servants Hall for breakfast. Meals were some of the few moments they saw each other, but their conversations were flat, like a mirror that no longer showed any true reflection. She avoided glances and touches, as if there was an invisible trench between them.

On one of the quiet nights, as he sat in the cottage and stared at the fire that was slowly burning down, it was again that moment of solitude that he could no longer bear. How often had they sat here together and drank tea, talked or read a book. Together on the small couch. He had his legs on the stool on which they were now lying and Anna snuggled up to him and her legs pulled up on the couch, often still under a blanket. They were happy. He couldn't have imagined it all or misinterpreted it. But obviously there was something that he hadn't seen coming, that he had overlooked. But Anna didn't want to tell him and he himself - no matter how often he thought about it - couldn't find anything that explained her change from one day to the next. The thought of losing Anna tormented him. But what could he do? Should he crush her with his fears and despair? With his irrepressible publishers for an explanation?

He didn't know if he would ever find the answers he was so desperately looking for. But in the darkness of the cottage, in moments of silence, he knew he couldn't give it up. Maybe it was love that still held him. Or maybe it was the fear of what he would be without her? No, it was love. The deep and unconditional love he felt for his wife.

And so, he stayed in the cottage, surrounded by the loneliness that had never quite left him, waiting for an answer that Anna might one day give him. But until then, all he could do was the agony of waiting, fear, and hope that the love he felt would eventually be reciprocated by Anna—in a way that no longer overwhelmed him with the darkness of his own past.