care of him for you, or Peggy will, perhaps. You'll think I never cared
for him, but I do, I love him, only I must love Guy most of all. I don't
know if I shall be happy or miserable, but I expect miserable, only I
must go with Guy. Please, dear Peter, try and understand this, and
forgive me. I think you will, because you always do understand things,
and forgive them too; I think you are the kindest person I ever knew. If
I thought you loved me really, I don't think I'd go, even for Guy; but I
know you've only felt kindly to me all along, so I think it is best for
you too that I should go, and you will be thankful in the end. Good-bye.
You promised mother to see after me, I know, for she told me before she
died; well, you've done your best, and mother'd be grateful to you if she
could know. I suppose some would say she does know, perhaps; but I don't
believe those stories; I believe it's all darkness beyond, and silence.
And if it is, we must try and get all the light and warmth here that we
can. So I'm going.

"Good-bye, Peter.

"Rhoda."

Peter read it through, sitting on the rug by the fire. When he had
finished it, he put it into the fire and watched it burn. Then he sighed,
and sat very still for a while, his hands clasped round one knee.

Presently he got up and looked behind the clock, and saw that the next
feeding-time was due now. So he rang for Mrs. Adams, the landlady, and
asked her if she would mind bringing Thomas's bottle.

When Thomas had it, Peter stood and looked down upon him as he drank with
ill-bred noises.

"Gently, Thomas: you'll choke. You'll choke and die, I know you will.
Then you'll be gone too. Everything goes, Thomas. Everything I touch
breaks; everything I try to do fails. That's because I'm such an ass,
I suppose. I did think I could perhaps make one little unlucky girl
decently happy; but I couldn't, you see. So she's gone after light and
warmth, and she'll--she'll break her heart in a year, and it'll be my
fault. Follow her? No, I shan't do that. I shouldn't find her, and if I
did what would be the use? If she must go, she must; she was only eating
her heart out here; and perhaps it's better to break one's heart on
something than eat it out in emptiness. No, it isn't better in this case.
Anything in the world would have been better than this; that she should
have gone with that--that person. Yet thus it is. And they'll all set on
her and speak against her, and I shall have to bear i