But, Martin, never forget I love you so much I can never change. I'm
not one who changes, and although I'm young now I shall be just the
same when I'm old. I have the ring and I look at it all the time. I
like to think you have the locket. Please write, dear Martin, or
I'll find it very difficult to stay quiet here, and I know I ought
to stay quiet for your sake.
Your loving,
MAGGIE.
She put it in an envelope, wrote the address as he had told her, and
then set out to find Jane. It was four o'clock in the afternoon now
and the house, on this winter's day, was dark and dim.
The gas was always badly lit in the passages, spitting and muttering
like an imprisoned animal. The house was so quiet when Maggie came
out on to the stairs that there seemed to be no one in it. She found
her way down into the hall and saw Thomas the cat there, moving like
a black ghost along the floor. He came up to her and rubbed himself
in his sinister, mysterious way against her dress. When she turned
towards the green baize door that led towards the kitchen regions he
stood back from her, stole on to the lower steps of the staircase
and watched her with steady, unblinking eyes.
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