In the end Barbara did not go away. At the time Anthony was being
instructed by a tutor who resided at the Hall to prepare him for
the University and ultimately for the Army. Needless to say, she was
employed continually in trying to compose the differences between him
and this tutor. How then could she go away and leave that poor gentleman
and her old mother, who when she was not staying with one of her other
married daughters now made her home at the Hall?
Thus she argued to herself, but the truth was that she did not wish
to go. Her dearest associations were in the churchyard yonder, the
churchyard where she hoped ere long she would be laid. She hated life,
she sought and craved for death. This was her sin.
Night by night she lay awake and thought of Anthony, her darling, her
beloved. She remembered that dream of his about a home that awaited him
in another world, and she loved to fancy him as dwelling in that place
of peace and making ready for her coming.
Nobody thought of him now except herself and his old dog Nell. The dog
thought of him, she was sure, for it would sleep beneath his empty bed,
and at times sit up, look at it and whine. Then it would come and rest
its head upon her as she slept, and she would wake to find it looking at
her with a question in its eyes.
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