"I
don't understand you quite, but I am sure what you say is true. I daresay
it is all that I'm seedy. I feel sometimes as if I were mad, and just fit
to be locked up. But don't think I don't struggle against it. I do, I do
continually, only sometimes it seems too strong for me. I pray God night
and morning to give me the strength to overcome my suspicions, or to remove
these dreadful thoughts from me. God knows, I know what a wretched creature
I am, and how unfit to take care of that poor girl."
And Oke again pressed my hand. As we entered the garden, he turned to me
once more.
"I am very, very grateful to you," he said, "and, indeed, I will do my best
to try and be stronger. If only," he added, with a sigh, "if only Alice
would give me a moment's breathing-time, and not go on day after day
mocking me with her Lovelock."
10
I had begun Mrs. Oke's portrait, and she was giving me a sitting. She was
unusually quiet that morning; but, it seemed to me, with the quietness of a
woman who is expecting something, and she gave me the impression of being
extremely happy. She had been reading, at my suggestion, the "Vita Nuova,"
which she did not know before, and the conversation came to roll upon that,
and upon the question whether love so abstract and so enduring was a
possibility.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98