A Duet (with an occasional chorus), Arthur Conan Doyle [free e books to read online TXT] 📗

down into the stress and worry of life, when I found you so highabove it? And what can I offer you in exchange?' These are thethoughts which come back and back all day, and leave me in theblackest fit of despondency. I confessed to you that I had darkhumours, but never one so hopeless as this. I do not wish my worstenemy to be as unhappy as I have been to-day.

Write to me, my own darling Maude, and tell me all you think, yourvery inmost soul, in this matter. Am I right? Have I asked too muchof you? Does the change frighten you? You will have this in themorning, and I should have my answer by the evening post. I shallmeet the postman. How hard I shall try not to snatch the letter fromhim, or to give myself away. Wilson has been in worrying me withfoolish talk, while my thoughts were all of our affairs. He workedme up into a perfectly homicidal frame of mind, but I hope that Ikept on smiling and was not discourteous to him. I wonder which isright, to be polite but hypocritical, or