"After walking, as usual, in the most unfrequented place I could pick out, and after trying, not very successfully, to think to some good purpose of what I am to do next, I remembered that Ineeded some note-paper and pens, and went back to the town to the stationer's shop. It might have been wiser to have sent for what I wanted. But I was weary of myself, and weary of my lonely rooms; and I did my own errand, for no better reason than that it was something to do.
"I had just got into the shop, and was asking for what I wanted, when another customer came in. We both looked up, and recognized each other at the same moment: Miss Milroy.
"A woman and a lad were behind the counter, besides the man who was serving me. The woman civilly addressed the new customer.
'What can we have the pleasure of doing for you, miss?' After pointing it first by looking me straight in the face, she answered, 'Nothing, thank you, at present. I'll come back when the shop is empty.'
"She went out. The three people in the shop looked at me in silence. In silence, on my side, I paid for my purchases, and left the place. I don't know how I might have felt if I had been in my usual spirits. In the anxious, unsettled state I am in now, I can't deny it, the girl stung me.
"In the weakness of the moment (for it was nothing else), I was on the point of matching her petty spitefulness by spitefulness quite as petty on my side. I had actually got as far as the whole length of the street on my way to the major's cottage, bent on telling him the secret of his daughter's morning walks, before my better sense came back to me. When I did cool down, I turned round at once, and took the way home. No, no, Miss Milroy; mere temporary mischief-making at the cottage, which would only end in your father forgiving you, and in Armadale profiting by his indulgence, will nothing like pay the debt I owe you. I don't forget that your heart is set on Armadale; and that the major, however he may talk, has always ended hitherto in giving you your own way. My head may be getting duller and duller, but it has not quite failed me yet.
"In the meantime, there is Mother Oldershaw's letter waiting obstinately to be answered; and here am I, not knowing what to do about it yet. Shall I answer it or not? It doesn't matter for the present; there are some hours still to spare before the post goes out.
"Suppose I asked Armadale to lend me the money? I should enjoy getting _something_ out of him; and I believe, in his present situation with Miss Milroy, he would do anything to be rid of me.
Mean enough this, on my part. Pooh! When you hate and despise a man, as I hate and despise Armadale, who cares for looking mean in _his_ eyes?
"And yet my pride--or my something else, I don't know what--shrinks from it.
"Half-past two--only half-past two. Oh, the dreadful weariness of these long summer days! I can't keep thinking and thinking any longer; I must do something to relieve my mind. Can I go to my piano? No; I'm not fit for it. Work? No; I shall get thinking again if I take to my needle. A man, in my place, would find refuge in drink. I'm not a man, and I can't drink. I'll dawdle over my dresses, and put my things tidy.
* * * * * *
"Has an hour passed? More than an hour. It seems like a minute.
"I can't look back through these leaves, but I know I wrote somewhere that I felt myself getting nearer and nearer to some end that was still hidden from me. The end is hidden no longer.
The cloud is off my mind, the blindness has gone from my eyes. Isee it! I see it!
"It came to me--I never sought it. If I was lying on my death-bed, I could swear, with a safe conscience, I never sought it.
"I was only looking over my things; I was as idly and as frivolously employed as the most idle and most frivolous woman living. I went through my dresses, and my linen. What could be more innocent? Children go through their dresses and their linen.
"It was, such a long summer day, and I was so tired of myself. Iwent to my boxes next. I looked over the large box first, which Iusually leave open; and then I tried the small box, which Ialways keep locked.
"From one thing to the other, I came at last to the bundle of letters at the bottom--the letters of the man for whom I once sacrificed and suffered everything; the man who has made me what I am.
"A hundred times I had determined to burn his letters; but I have never burned them. This, time, all I said wa s, 'I won't read his letters!' And I did read them.
"The villain--the false, cowardly, heartless villain--what have Ito do with his letters now? Oh, the misery of being a woman! Oh, the meanness that our memory of a man can tempt us to, when our love for him is dead and gone! I read the letters--I was so lonely and so miserable, I read the letters.
"I came to the last--the letter he wrote to encourage me, when Ihesitated as the terrible time came nearer and nearer; the letter that revived me when my resolution failed at the eleventh hour. Iread on, line after line, till I came to these words:
" '. . . I really have no patience with such absurdities as you have written to me. You say I am driving you on to do what is beyond a woman's courage. Am I? I might refer you to any collection of Trials, English or foreign. to show that you were utterly wrong. But such collections may be beyond your reach; and I will only refer you to a case in yesterday's newspaper. The circumstances are totally different from our circumstances; but the example of resolution in a woman is an example worth your notice.