CHAPTER XXIII.
A REVERSAL All this is to be sanctified, This rupture with the past; For thus we die before our deaths, And so die well at last.
_Faber_.
Dinner-time came, and passed, and still Richard did not come.

At eight o'clock Ann brought the tea, as usual, and it stood nearly an hour upon the table; and then I told her to take it away.
By this time I had begun to feel uneasy.

Something must have happened.
It would necessarily be something uncomfortable, perhaps something that would frighten me, and give me another shock.

And I dreaded that so; I had had so many.

But perhaps, dreadful though it might be, it would bring me a release.