The man
Hopkins declared he could not trust me because I had once been a thief,
and I wondered if he could speak truly. I resented the thought that I
may once have been a thief, although I wouldn't mind stealing, even now,
if I wanted anything and could take it."
"Oh, Eliza!" gasped Louise.
"It sounds wicked, doesn't it? But it is true. Nothing seems to
influence me so strongly as my own whims. I know what is good and what
is bad. I must have been taught these things once. But I am as likely to
do evil as good, and this recklessness has begun, in the last few days,
to worry me.
"Then I met a young man here--he says his name is Tom Gates--who called
me his dear Lucy, and said I used to love him. I laughed at him at
first, for it seemed very absurd and I do not want him to love me. But
then he proved to me there was some truth in his statement. He said his
Lucy had a scar on her left arm, and that made me afraid, because I had
discovered a scar on my own arm. I don't know how it got there. I don't
know anything about this old Lucy. And I'm afraid to find out. I'm
afraid of Lucy."
"Why, dear?"
"I cannot tell. I only know I have a horror of her, a sudden shrinking
whenever her name is mentioned.
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