And
she was asking me to tell her what I had been doing during all these
months of nightmare. But I knew that I never could tell her, either
now or at any future time. I knew that to tell her would be to kill
her.
'Winnie,' I said, 'I will tell you all about myself, but I must hear
your story first. The faster you get on with that the sooner you will
hear what I have to tell.'
'Then I will get on fast,' said she. 'After a while my thoughts, as I
tossed in my bed, turned from the past to the future. What was the
future that was lying before me? For months I had evidently been
living on the charity of Mr. D'Arcy. My only excuse for having done
so was that I was entirely unconscious of it; but now that I did know
the relations between us I must of course end them at once. But what
was I to do? Whither was I to go? Besides Miss Dalrymple, whose
address I did not know, I had no friends except Sinfi Lovell and the
Gypsies and a few Welsh farmers. To live upon my benefactor's
generous charity now that I was conscious of it was, I felt,
impossible.
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