I had no warning -- nothing.
His letter came like a thunderbolt. I thought he was
perfectly happy."
She began to cry, poor thing, and I felt very sorry for her.
But in a little while she grew calmer.
"It's no good making a fool of myself," she said, drying
her eyes. "The only thing is to decide what is the best
thing to do."
She went on, talking somewhat at random, now of the recent
past, then of their first meeting and their marriage;
but presently I began to form a fairly coherent picture of
their lives; and it seemed to me that my surmises had not
been incorrect. Mrs. Strickland was the daughter of an
Indian civilian, who on his retirement had settled in the depths
of the country, but it was his habit every August to take his
family to Eastbourne for change of air; and it was here,
when she was twenty, that she met Charles Strickland.
He was twenty-three. They played together, walked on the front
together, listened together to the nigger minstrels; and she
had made up her mind to accept him a week before he proposed
to her. They lived in London, first in Hampstead, and then,
as he grew more prosperous, in town.
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