And she broke down completely, sobbing hysterically for a long time.
When she was quieted, and was seemingly asleep, Mrs. Mervyn had time to reflect. What were those two about?
“They are too much in love with each other and cannot talk sense, that’s what it is,” she told herself. “Ah, well, time enough! The brother and sister business is really nicer during the first mourning, when there should be no thoughts of ‘marrying, or giving in marriage.’”
CHAPTER VII.
FOUND IN AN OLD NOTEBOOK OF LILIA PYM’S.
October —, 18—.
If I do not tell someone, or something, I shall go mad!
Oh! father, father, I loved you so; and what have you done to me?
You could not help dying and leaving me, I know that. The relentless progress of atoms, whose rules no one is clear-brained or unprejudiced enough to discover, determined your death.
But why, why did you degrade me so? I have been wandering in the dark among the pines, in the forlorn hope of meeting your spirit. I have been to the place in the churchyard where they buried you, to-day. I knew I could not see or hear you, but I thought my mind might feel your mind. I felt nothing—but that you—are—not.
You are not. Terrible, cruel thought! And I have not the courage to kill myself and be not, as well. This man you have given me to, without asking me, holds me, holds every bit of me—body, heart, what they call mind and soul—everything. I feel I must do his will, and that my own will is as not as you are.