And one other thing I put with them, that she does not know I keep: the silver thimble, from the sewing-box at Briar, with which she smoothed my pointed tooth.
The coach comes, sooner than I think it will. ''Thank God,'' says Richard. He carries his hat. He is too tall for this low and tilting house: when we step outside, he stretches. I have kept to my room so long, however, the day feels vast to me. I walk with Sue''s arm gripped in mine, and at the door of the coach, when I must give it up—give it up, for ever!—I think I hesitate.
''Now, now,'' says Richard, taking my hand from her. ''No time for sentiment.''
Then we drive. I feel it, as more than a matter of galloping horses and turning wheels. It is like an undoing of my first journey, with Mrs Stiles, from the madhouse to Briar: I put my face to the window
as the carriage slows, and almost expect to see the house and the mothers I was snatched from. I should remember them still, I know it. But, that house was large. This one is smaller, and lighter. It has rooms for female lunatics, only. That house was set in bare earth. This one has a bed of flowers beside its door—tall flowers, with tips like spikes.