Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/185

Rh ' I waited for you on Friday night for an hour and a half. And I really did think you would come some time to me, or you would write and tell me why you hadn't come these three Fridays. And I am very sorry if you are angry with me for writeing to you to tell you of it; but I think you must have forgoten that you told me that evening that you would come again the next Friday, and I thought perhaps I had made a mistake about it, and that is why I wated these three Fridays, and I think you might have written to tell me why you could not come.

'Minnie is dead. A man hit her across the back with a stick Yesterday, Mrs. Smith says, when I was away, and it killed her. I cried about it; which thing I have never had to do before quite like that. Please write to me and explain why you did not come these three Fridays, as you said you would. I hope you will please excuse this long letter and the writeing, but I don't suppose you care enough to mind.—I am, yours truly.

I re-read some parts of it, and then threw it up on to the plate, and rose and began to pace about the room, thinking.

After a time I stopped at the open window.

There is a budding morrow in midnight, I said to myself.

I took up the lawyer's letter, and having folded, put it on the plate, and Colonel James' letter, and Rosy's, and put the cheque-book on the top. Then, standing thinking, I ate all the grapes, and drank a glassful of water, and gathered up what was on the plate, and went upstairs into my room.

The gas was low as I had left it. I turned it up. I set about doing what I intended. I changed my clothes and boots quickly: put the papers I had brought up, together with my usual cheque-book and a pocket-book containing bank-notes to the value of twenty-five pounds or so, into my breast-coat-pocket, all the gold I had into my right waistcoat-pocket, and all the silver I had into my right trouser-pocket. I had a sudden thought of packing a portmanteau; or my old black hand-bag. No: I couldn't be troubled with it. I would get what was wanted on the way.

Then I turned out the gas; went downstairs again, and wrote a short note to Mrs. Herbert, saying what