Oh! they were so heartless and selfish: every one was; life itself was.

I did not know where to turn for comfort.

I had a feeling of dreading every one, of shrinking away from every one.
"Oh!" I said to myself, "if Richard is with them at the table, I never want to see him again." But Richard was not with them.

In a moment or two he came to the door, only to ask me if I wanted anything, and to say he would come back by-and-by.
There was a question which I longed so frantically to ask him, but which I dared not; my life seemed to hang on the answer.

_When were they going to take him away ?_ I had heard something about trains and carriages, and I had a wild dread that it was soon to be.
I went to the door and called Richard back, and made him understand what I wanted to know.