t you don''t admire me.''
''I hate you.''
''Hate yourself, then. We''re alike, you and I. More alike than you know. You think the world ought to love us, for the kinks in the fibres of our hearts? The world scorns us. Thank God it does! There was never a profit to be got from love; from scorn, however, you may twist riches, as filthy water may be wrung from a cloth. You know it is true. You are like me. I say it again: hate me, hate yourself.''
His hands are warm upon my face, at least. I close my eyes.
I say, ''I do.''
Then Sue comes from her room, to knock upon our door. He keeps his pose, but calls for her to enter.
''Look here,'' he says when she does, his voice quite changed, ''at your mistress. Don''t you think her eyes a little brighter . . .?'' We leave next day, for the madhouse.
She comes to dress me, for the final time.
''Thank you, Sue,'' I say, in the old soft way, each time she hooks a button or draws a lace. I wear, still, the gown in which I left Briar, that is spotted with mud and river-water. She wears my gown of silk—blue silk, against which the white of her wrists and throat is turned to the colour of cream, and the browns of her hair and eyes are made rich. She has grown handsome. She moves about the room, taking up my linen, my shoes, my brushes and pins, and putting them carefully in bags. Two bags, there are: one destined for London, the other for the madhouse—the first, as she supposes, for herself; the second for me. It is hard to watch her make her choices—to see her frown over a petticoat, a pair of stockings or shoes, to know she is thinking, These will surely be good enough for mad people and doctors. This she ought to take, in case the nights are cool. Now, that and those (the bottle of drops, my gloves) she must have.—I move them, when she leaves me, and place them deep in the other bag.