She was catlike in her love of places, and now
she must tear herself away from all these surroundings and seek some
new spot wherein to hide herself and her sorrows.
It was like tearing up a half-rooted flower, already drooping from
one transplanting. She said to herself that she could never survive
another change. She read the letter over which lay in her hand, and
tears began to slowly well from her eyes. Joy seldom wept; but now
it seemed to her she was some other person, who stood apart and wept
tears of sympathy for this poor girl, Joy Irving, whose life was so
hemmed about with troubles, none of which were of her own making; and
then, like a dam which suddenly gives way and allows a river to
overflow, a great storm of sobs shook her frame, and she wept as she
had never wept before; and with her tears there came rushing back to
her heart all the old love and sorrow for the dead mother which had
so long been hidden under her burden of shame; and all the old
passion and longing for the man whose insane wife she knew to be a
more hopeless obstacle between them than this mother's history had
proven.
"Mother, Arthur, pity me, pity me!" she cried. "I am all alone, and
the strife is so terrible. I have never meant to harm any living
thing! Mother Arthur, GOD, how can you all desert me so?"
At last, exhausted, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
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