And then the pain was like a ragged knife. She would walk across the little sitting-room, back and forwards, back and forwards.
“No, no, it can’t. It’s all too real and true to me to ever fail. If it fails it’ll nearly kill me. I can’t write anything better. I never shall, however hard I try.”
So, because she dared not, she never thought of failure.
As the last chapters drew to an end, there arose that most anxious question to the uninitiated—“Where must I send it?”
Editors she had tried till she had sickened of the process; besides, it was longer than the usual MSS. sent, and not quite suitable for a serial story. So she began to look round for a publisher, and picked out one at random—one of whom she had never before heard; for of the business part of literature she was deplorably ignorant.
Next she decided, or thought she herself decided, to take it up to town. That was a very unusual kind of thing for her to do, as she was very nervous of strangers and strange places; but it showed what a desperate state she had come to when she even determined to brave such a very great man as a publisher.
“I’ll just ask him if he’d mind reading it through carefully, because when stories are sent by post I don’t believe they ever look at them. Perhaps if I did take the trouble to go myself they would look at a chapter or two. And after that I think they’d understand.”
In the meantime she had sent the manuscript to be typewritten; but she had given the typewriters rather short notice, and they were very busy, and by the time the day arrived for her to go up to town a few of the chapters were still missing.
She had made up her mind to go on a certain Saturday, but was delayed on account of the slowness of the typewriters till the following Thursday, when she went either from impatience or from a stronger impulse, which she did not understand, for some of the chapters were missing still.