My two domestics welcomed me home, but no one
else. Only my lawyers knew of my arrival. With them alone had I
corresponded during the many months of my absence. Stay; I did
write one letter to Mrs. McMurray while I was at Verona, in reply
to an enquiry as to what had become of Carlotta and myself. I
answered courteously but briefly that Carlotta had run away with
Pasquale and that I should be abroad for an indefinite period.
But not even a letter from my lawyers awaited me. I thought
somewhat wistfully that I would willingly have paid six and eight
pence for it. But the feeling was momentary.
Then began a queer, untroubled life. Without definite resolve I
became a recluse, living forlornly from day to day. Like a bat I
avoided the outer sunshine and took my melancholy walks at night.
I had a pride in cherishing the habit of solitude. Were it not
that I entertained a real dislike of roots and water and the damp
and manifold discomforts of a cave, with which form of habitat
the ministrations of Stenson and Antoinette would have been
inconsistent, I should have gone forth into the nearest approach
to a Thebaid I could discover.
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