I did not know, as those others would doubtless have
known, that the situation in which I found myself was precisely of the
kind most conducive to the darkest deeds. I did but bemoan it, and
think of Lear in the hovel on the heath. The wind howled in the
chimney, and the rain had begun to sputter right down it, so that the
fire was beginning to hiss in a very sinister manner. Suppose the fire
went out! It looked as if it meant to. I snatched the pair of bellows
that hung beside it. I plied them vigorously. `Now mind!--not too
vigorously. We aren't yours!' they wheezed. I handled them more
gently. But I did not release them till they had secured me a steady
blaze.
I sat down before that blaze. Despair had been warded off. Gloom,
however, remained; and gloom grew. I felt that I should prefer any
one's thoughts to mine. I rose, I returned to the books. A dozen or so
of those which were on the lowest of the three shelves were full-
sized, were octavo, looked as though they had been bought to be read.
I would exercise my undoubted right to read one of them. Which of
them? I gradually decided on a novel by a well-known writer whose
works, though I had several times had the honour of meeting her, were
known to me only by repute.
I knew nothing of them that was not good.
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