Welcome to Litsy!

Yet not even her determinedly bright self-reliance could disguise the loneliness that came from her almost palpably, like a heat haze. She asked for neither sympathy nor help, but like a bereaved widow at a wake, she simply wanted company in her mourning. I suppose it provided confirmation that despite the odds and the internal evidence, she still existed.

There was never any question of motives: you do it because you do it, just as an artist always knows what he knows.