It is not only that I will not grieve him: still more, I will not disappoint him.'" Mercy wrote on and on.

The reaction from the pent-up grief, the prolonged strain, was great.

In her first joy at any, even the least, alleviation of the horror she had felt at the thought of Stephen's dishonesty, she over-estimated the extent of the relief she would feel from his surrendering the money at her request.

She wrote as buoyantly, as confidently, as if his doing that would do away with the whole wrong from the beginning.

In her overflowing, impetuosity, also, she did not consider what severe and cutting things were implied as well as said in some of her sentences.