She talked of going alone, but she did not go, and after a time we
gave up thinking about it. Then one day, quite suddenly, she said: "It
_is_ time this old hysterical mock-disease should die," and she told
us that she had at last decided to travel--somewhere; nothing more
definite than that, for she said she had no fixed plans. We concluded,
however, that she meant to be away some time, for she said something
about perils of the deep, and the uncertainty of life generally, and
she confided her private papers to my care, telling me to look at them
if they would interest me, and make what use of them I pleased; and
that was how those from which I have gathered much of her story came
into my possession. And then she left us, and for a whole year we
heard nothing of her--not one word. Claudia chafed a little, and
complained, as women will when things do not arrange themselves
exactly as they would have ordered them; but I was content to wait,
and, because I expected nothing, the time did not seem so long as
perhaps it might have done. We lived our usual life--part of the year
in one of the eastern counties, and part in London, and then we came
north again.
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