My hands shook.
Oh, I was wretched!
As I passed the Park, I saw that spring had leaped to summer and the trees
waved fresh, green branches in the air--just such trees as John and I
walked under, less than a year ago, making great plans for a golden
future; and a golden future there must be, but I had then no hope of it,
no joy in life, no happiness even in my beauty. One only thought spurred
me on, to forget past, present and future; to buy forgetfulness by any
caprice; to win diversion by any adventure.
After some time I saw that I was in a side street whose number seemed
familiar; self-searching at last recalled to me that on this street lived
two rival faith healers, about whose lively competition for clients Cadge
had once told us girls a funny story.
Could there have come to my thought some hope of finding rest from sorrow
in the leading of another mind? Impossible to say. I was near insanity, I
think. I chose the nearer practitioner and rang the bell.
I can smile now at memory of the stuffy little parlour into which I was
ushered, but I did not smile then at it, nor at the middle-aged woman who
received me with a set smile of stereotyped placidity.
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