I, for my part, can scarcely bear to have you know so much about me--and what I am come to.

That is my real punishment, Phil--not what you said it was.
"I do not think it is well for me that you know so much about me.

It is not too difficult to face the outer world with a bold front--or to deceive any man in it.

But our own little world is being rapidly undeceived; and now the only real man remaining in it has seen my gay mask stripped off--which is not well for a woman, Phil.
"I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms--for the honour of what we once were to each other before the world.

But steering a ghost-ship through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind--a little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.
"And now--with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I draw toward me another sheet--the last I have still unstained; to ask at last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages--and for which these pages alone were written: "_What_ do you think of me?
Asking you, shows how much I care; dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page.
_What_ do you think of me?
I am perfectly miserable about Boots, but that is partly fright--though I know I am safe enough with such a man.