Well" (laughing again, with a certain grim humor), "I would not fret about it _too_ much, if I were you--it is a relationship that has its disadvantages." He laughs a little dryly.
"On whatever other heads I may quarrel with Providence, at least no one can accuse me of ever murmuring at its decrees in this respect." We have risen.

The darkness creeps on apace, warmly, without damp or chillness; but still, on it comes! I have to face the prospect of my great and gloomy house all through the lagging hours of the long black night! "They will come to-morrow, _certainly_, I suppose ?" (interrogatively).
"Not _certainly_, at all!" reply I, with an energetic despondence in my voice; "quite the contrary! most likely not! most likely not the day after either, nor the day after that--" "And if they do not" (with an accent of sincere compassion), "what will you do ?" "What I have done to-day, I suppose," I answer dejectedly; "cry till my cheeks are _sore_! You may not believe me" (passing my bare fingers lightly over them as I speak), "but they feel quite _raw_.

I wonder" (with a little dismal laugh) "why tears were made _salt_!--they would not blister one half so much if they were fresh water." He has drawn a pace or two nearer to me.

In this light one has to look closely at any object that one wishes specially and narrowly to observe; and I myself have pointed out the peculiarities of my countenance to him, so I cannot complain if he scrutinizes me with a lengthy attention.
"It is going to be such a _dark_ night!" I say, with a slight shiver; "and if the wind gets up, I know that I shall lie awake all night, thinking that the gen--that Roger is drowned! Do you not think" (looking round apprehensively) "that it is rising already?
See how those boughs are waving!" "Not an atom!" reassuringly.
We both look for an instant at the silent flower-beds, at the sombre bulk of the house.
"If they do not come to-morrow--" begins Frank.
"But they _will_!" cry I, petulantly; "they _must_! I cannot do without them! I believe some people do not _mind_ being alone--not even in the evenings, when the furniture cracks and the door-handles rattle.

I dare say _you_ do not; but I hate my own company; I have never been used to it.