...of ruminating

The train rushed through the dismal afternoon, the silence between them had an edge to it. Stephen was often silent, but she knew he was thinking now of their parent' marriage, and wondering about it. Two facts made it possible: the divorce of her own parents and the death of his mother. The divorce had happened before she or Stephen could remember. Now and again her father came back to Dynmouth, or to see her at St Cecilia's, but the visits made her unhappy because his presence caused her to sense the trouble, and the pain there'd been. She couldn't help not liking him, sensing as well that it was he who had been cruel, that he had deserted her mother for the wife he was now married to.

[The Children of Dynmouth, Trevor, W.]