She had failed; they gave
up hope. For this was the explanation that haunted the region of my mind
where feelings stir and hint before they clothe themselves in actual
language. Only I firmly kept it there; it never knew expression.
But, if my ears were open, my eyes were opened too, and it were idle to
pretend that I did not notice a hundred details that were capable of
sinister interpretation had I been weak enough to yield. Some protective
barrier had fallen into ruins round me, so that Terror stalked behind
the general collapse, feeling for me through all the gaping fissures.
Much of this, I admit, must have been merely the elaboration of those
sensations I had first vaguely felt, before subsequent events and my
talks with Frances had dramatized them into living thoughts. I therefore
leave them unmentioned in this history, just as my mind left them
unmentioned in that interminable final week. Our life went on precisely
as before--Mabel unreal and outwardly so still; Frances, secretive,
anxious, tactful to the point of slyness, and keen to save to the point
of self-forgetfulness.
There were the same stupid meals, the same wearisome long evenings, the
stifling ugliness of house and grounds, the Shadow settling in so
thickly that it seemed almost a visible, tangible thing.
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