Page:Carroll - Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.djvu/328

290 "Not much better, I fear: but no worse, I am thankful to say."

"Let us sit here awhile, and have a quiet chat," she said. The calmnessalmost indifferenceof her manner quite took me by surprise. I little guessed what a fierce restraint she was putting upon herself.

"One can be so quiet here," she resumed. I come here everyevery day."

"It is very peaceful," I said.

"You got my letter?"

"Yes, but I delayed writing. It is so hard to sayon paper"

"I know. It was kind of you. You were with us when we saw the last of" She paused a moment, and went on more hurriedly. "I went down to the harbour several times, but no one knows which of those vast graves it is. However, they showed me the house he died in: that was some comfort. I stood in the very room wherewhere." She struggled in vain to go on. The flood-gates had given way at last, and the outburst of grief was the most terrible I had ever witnessed. Totally regardless of my presence, she flung herself