So dreadful did it seem, that
she thought her brain must give way. She would have to leave Woodview. Oh,
the shame of confession! Mrs. Barfield, who had been so good to her, and
who thought so highly of her. Her father would not have her at home; she
would be homeless in London. No hope of obtaining a situation.... they
would send her away without a character, homeless in London, and every
month her position growing more desperate....
A sickly faintness crept up through her. The flesh had come to the relief
of the spirit; and she sank upon her chair, almost unconscious, sick, it
seemed, to death, and she rose from the chair wiping her forehead slowly
with her apron.... She might be mistaken. And she hid her face in her
hands, and then, falling on her knees, her arms thrown forward upon the
table, she prayed for strength to walk without flinching under any cross
that He had thought fit to lay upon her.
There was still the hope that she might be mistaken; and this hope lasted
for one week, for two, but at the end of the third week it perished, and
she abandoned herself in prayer. She prayed for strength to endure with
courage what she now knew she must endure, and she prayed for light to
guide her in her present decision. Mrs. Barfield, however much she might
pity her, could not keep her once she knew the truth, whereas none might
know the truth if she did not tell it.
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