I asked her why she had
gone back--I asked what those words were which she had spoken at the
grave. 'A promise to our dead father,' she answered, with a momentary
return of the wild look and the frenzied manner which had startled me
already. I was afraid to agitate her by saying more; I left all
other questions to be asked at a fitter and a quieter time. You will
understand from this how terribly she suffers, how wildly and strangely
she acts under violent agitation; and you will not interpret against her
what she said or did when you saw her on Wednesday last.
"We only returned to the house in time to hasten away from it to the
train. Perhaps it was better for us so--better that we had only a
moment left to look back before the turn in the road hid the last of
Combe-Raven from our view. There was not a soul we knew at the station;
nobody to stare at us, nobody to wish us good-by. The rain came on again
as we took our seats in the train. What we felt at the sight of the
railway--what horrible remembrances it forced on our minds of the
calamity which has made us fatherless--I cannot, and dare not, tell you.
I have tried anxiously not to write this letter in a gloomy tone; not
to return all your kindness to us by distressing you with our grief.
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