Read these sentences from W. Somerset Maugham's The Hero:
They had not seen him for five years, their only child; for he had gone from Sandhurst straight to India, and thence, on the outbreak of war, to the Cape. No one knew how much the lonely parents had felt the long separation, how eagerly they awaited his letters, how often they read them.
Which element of this text suggests the events happened long ago?
The use of letters
The length of time
The lonely parents
The only child