The sight of
Sally lighting the fire in my room eased my heart a little. When
she was gone, I took up Robert's letter again to keep my mind
employed on the only subject in the world that has any interest
for it now.
This fresh reading increased the doubts I had already felt
relative to his having remained in America after writing to me.
My grief and forlornness have made a strange alteration in my
former feelings about his coming back. I seem to have lost all my
prudence and self-denial, and to care so little about his
poverty, and so much about himself, that the prospect of his
return is really the only comforting thought I have now to
support me. I know this is weak in me, and that his coming back
can l ead to no good result for either of us; but he is the only
living being left me to love; and--I can't explain it--but I want
to put my arms round his neck and tell him about Mary.
March 14th. I locked up the end of the cravat in my
writing-desk. No change in the dreadful suspicions that the bare
sight of it rouses in me. I tremble if I so much as touch it.
March 15th, 16th, 17th. Work, work, work. If I don't knock up,
I shall be able to pay back the advance in another week; and
then, with a little more pinching in my daily expenses, I may
succeed in saving a shilling or two to get some turf to put over
Mary's grave, and perhaps even a few flowers besides to grow
round it.
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