darkened room. Amelia is having her time
of trial. They left for Bournemouth yesterday.

Am I a cold and heartless woman because now that Augustus has gone I
can only feel relief?

One of his last speeches was not calculated to leave an agreeable
impression.

"You'd better look out how you behave while I am away," he said. "I'd
kick up a row in a minute, only you're such a lump of ice no man would
bother with you." Then, in a passion: "I wish to God they would, and
take you off, so I could get some one of more use to me!" He was
surprised that I did not wish him to kiss me ten minutes after this.

And now he has gone, and for six months, at any rate, I shall be free
from his companionship.

When he returns things shall be started on a different footing.

I came down to Ledstone by myself yesterday. I have no plans. Perhaps
I shall stay here until Christmas, when I am to go to Bournemouth to
my mother-in-law.

The house seems more than ever big and hideously oppressive. I must
find some interest. The old numbness has returned with double force. I
take up a book and put it down again. I roam from one room to another.
I am restless and rebellious--rebellious with fate.

I know grandmamma would be angry with me could she come back to me
now. She would say I was behaving with the want of self-control of a
common person, and not as one of our race. Well, perhaps she is right.
I shall go to the cottage and see Hephzibah and give myself a shock.
That may do me good.

I never willingly let myself think of Antony, but unconsciously my
thoughts are always turning to the evening in the fog. I do not know
where he is. He may be at Dane Mount, only these few miles off, and
yet we must not meet.

I wonder if Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt had ever a lover.
Probably--and she would have listened to him, being of her time.

Oh, what is this quality in me that makes me as I am--a flabby thing,
with strength enough to push away all I desire in life, to keep
untarnished my idea of honor, and yet too weak to tear the matter from
my mind once I have done so?

How grandmamma would despise me!

I think of the Princess's answer to the riddle of the nineteenth day
in _A Digit of the Moon_. I am this middle thing, and it is only the
very bad and very good that achieve peace and perfect happiness.

"Come, Roy, away with us! Let us run, as we used to do last year when
we were young. Let us shake ourselves and laugh. No more of th