I only answered by drawing her close to me again. I was afraid of crying if I spoke. My tears do not flow so easily as they ought⁠—they come almost like men’s tears, with sobs that seem to tear me in pieces, and that frighten everyone about me.

“I have thought of this, love, for many days,” she went on, twining and twisting my hair with that childish restlessness in her fingers, which poor

Mrs.