If only I could
die and come to the end of it! How can you tell what I suffer? Oh
yes, you speak so calmly--as good as telling me I am unreasonable
because I can't do the same. I hate to hear your voice when it's
like that! I'd rather you raged at me or struck me!'
The beauty of her form had lost nothing since the evening when he
visited her in Farringdon Road Buildings; now, as then, all her
movements were full of grace and natural dignity. Whenever strong
feeling was active in her, she could not but manifest it in motion
unlike that of ordinary women. Her hair hung in disorder, though net
at its full length, massing itself upon her shoulders, shadowing her
forehead. Half-consumed by the fire that only death would
extinguish, she looked the taller for her slenderness. Ah, had the
face been untouched!
'You are unjust to me,' Sidney replied, with emotion, but not
resentfully. 'I can enter into all your sufferings. If I speak
calmly, it's because I _must_, because I daren't give way. One of us
must try and be strong, Clara, or else--'
He turned away.
'Let us leave this house,' she continued, hardly noticing what he
said, 'Let us live in some other place.
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