Persuasion

'l am half agony, half hope.'
Anne Elliot lost the love of her life eight years earlier and the sorrow lingers on. Yet the dashing Captain Wentworth did not desert her; it was Anne who rejected him because she 'was persuaded that she could make a better match.
She never did.
Suddenly, life deals them a second chance. Anne and Wentworth meet again on the social circuit. He acts coolly and even openly courts a younger woman, yet Anne remains painfully alert for the slightest hint that their love might be rekindled.
Persuasion was Austen's last novel, published posthumously in 1818.