Having written the letter I felt comforted, knowing
that Judith would understand.
I finished it about six o'clock one afternoon, and shrinking from
giving it to Stenson to post, as it was the first private letter
I had written since my arrival in London, I took it myself to the
pillar-box. The fresh air reproached me for the unreasonable
indoor life I had been leading, and invited me to remain outside.
It was already dark. An early touch of frost in the November air
rendered it exhilarating. I walked along the decorous,
residential roads of St. John's Wood feeling less remote from my
kind, more in sympathy with the humdrum dramas in progress behind
the rows of lighted windows. Now and then a garden gate opened
and a man in evening dress, and a woman, a vague, dainty mass of
satin and frills and fur, emerged, stood for a moment in the
shaft of light cast by the open hall-door beyond, which framed
the white-capped and aproned parlour-maid, and entering a waiting
hansom, drove off into the darkness whither my speculative fancy
followed them.
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