shire; and this
thought, I am sure, gave her real happiness. We determined at once what
we would do; we would let our house for a term of years, take what
furniture we needed, and dispose of the rest; we arranged to go off to
Gloucestershire, as soon as possible, to look for a house. We both
realise that we must learn to retrench at once. We shall have less than
half our former income, counting in what we hope to get from the old
house. I am not at all afraid of that. I always vaguely disliked living
as comfortably as we did--but it will not be agreeable to have to
calculate all our expenses--that may perhaps mend itself, if I can but
begin my writing again.

All this helps me--I am ashamed to say how much--though sometimes the
thought of all the necessary arrangements weighs on me like a leaden
weight, on days when I fall back into a sad, idle, hopeless repining.
Sometimes it seems as if the old happy life was all broken up and gone
for ever; and, so strange a thing is memory and imagination, that even
the months overshadowed by the loss of my faculty of work seem to me
now impossibly fragrant and beautiful, my sufferings unreal and
unsubstantial. Real trouble, real grief, have at least the bracing
force of actuality, and sweep aside with a strong hand all artificial
self-made miseries and glooms.

December 15, 1889.

I have kept no record of these weeks. They have been full of business,
sadness, and yet of hope. We went back home for a time; we made our
farewells, and it moved me strangely to see that our departure was
viewed almost with consternation. It is Maud's loss that will be felt.
I have lived very selfishly and dully myself, but even so I was
half-glad to find that even I should be missed. At such a time
everything is forgotten and forgiven, and such grudging, peaceful
neighbourliness as even I have shown seems appreciated and valued. It
was a heartrending business reviving our sorrow, and it plunged me for
a time into my old dry bitterness of spirit. But I hardened my heart as
best I could, and felt more deeply than ever, how far beyond my powers
of endurance it would have been to have taken up the old life, and Alec
not there. Again and again it was like a knife plunged into my heart
with an almost physical pain. Not so with Maud and Maggie--it was to
them a treasure of precious memories, and they could dare to indulge
their grief. I can't write of it, I can't think of it. Wherever I
turned, I saw h