It was so hideous,
so unutterable. To go on with my old life, in the old place, among the
old people, was quite impossible. I wanted to follow her, to do what
she had done. The only alternative was to fly as far from England, as
far from myself, as I could.'
'Sometimes,' Mrs. Kempton confessed by-and-bye, 'sometimes I wondered
whether, possibly, your disappearance could have had any such
connection with Mary's death--it followed it so immediately. I
wondered sometimes whether, perhaps, you had cared for her. But I
couldn't believe it--it was only because the two things happened one
upon the other. Oh, why didn't you tell her? It is dreadful,
dreadful!'
IV.
When he had left her, she sat still for a little while before the
fire.
'Life is a chance to make mistakes--a chance to make mistakes. Life
is a chance to make mistakes.'
It was a phrase she had met in a book she was reading the other day:
then she had smiled at it; now it rang in her ears like the voice of a
mocking demon.
'Yes, a chance to make mistakes,' she said, half aloud.
She rose and went to her desk, unlocked a drawer, turned over its
contents, and took out a letter--an old letter, for the paper was
yellow and the ink was faded. She came back to the fireside, and
unfolded the letter and read it.
Pages:
91
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