St. Mark's Day.
My dear Rector,
Thank you very much for sending me the money. I've handed it over
to a splendid fellow called Gurney who keeps all the accounts
(private or otherwise) in the Mission House. Poor chap, he's
desperately ill with asthma, and nobody thinks he can live much
longer. He suffers tortures, particularly at night, and as I sleep
in the next room I can hear him.
You mustn't think me inconsiderate because I haven't written
sooner, but I wanted to wait until I had seen a bit of this place
before I wrote to you so that you might have some idea what I was
doing and be able to realize that it is the one and only place
where I ought to be at the moment.
But first of all before I say anything about Chatsea I want to try
to express a little of what your kindness has meant to me during
the last two years. I look back at myself just before my sixteenth
birthday when I was feeling that I should have to run away to sea
or do something mad in order to escape that solicitor's office, and
I simply gasp! What and where should I be now if it hadn't been for
you? You have always made light of the burden I must have been, and
though I have tried to show you my gratitude I'm afraid it hasn't
been very successful.
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