Lilia, so similar to her husband in many ways, yearned
for comfort and sympathy too. The night he laughed at her
she wildly took up paper and pen and wrote page after page,
analysing his character, enumerating his iniquities,
reporting whole conversations, tracing all the causes and
the growth of her misery. She was beside herself with
passion, and though she could hardly think or see, she
suddenly attained to magnificence and pathos which a
practised stylist might have envied. It was written like a
diary, and not till its conclusion did she realize for whom
it was meant.
"Irma, darling Irma, this letter is for you. I almost
forgot I have a daughter. It will make you unhappy, but I
want you to know everything, and you cannot learn things too
soon. God bless you, my dearest, and save you. God bless
your miserable mother."
Fortunately Mrs. Herriton was in when the letter
arrived. She seized it and opened it in her bedroom.
Another moment, and Irma's placid childhood would have been
destroyed for ever.
Lilia received a brief note from Harriet, again
forbidding direct communication between mother and daughter,
and concluding with formal condolences. It nearly drove her
mad.
"Gently! gently!" said her husband. They were sitting
together on the loggia when the letter arrived. He often
sat with her now, watching her for hours, puzzled and
anxious, but not contrite.
"It's nothing." She went in and tore it up, and then
began to write--a very short letter, whose gist was "Come and
save me.
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