August 9
Horribly upset with news from home. Mother is really ill. The Doctor fears serious nerve trouble and says she will always be an invalid. This is awful, poor dear! It’s dreadful, and yet I have a tiny wish buried at the bottom of my heart that she may be removed early from us rather than linger in pain of body and mind. Especially do I hope she may not live to hear any grievous news of me. … What irony that she should lose the use of her right arm only two years after Dad’s death from paralysis. It is cruel for it reminds her of Dad’s illness. … What, too, would she think if she could have heard M⸺’s first words to me yesterday on one of my periodical visits to his consulting room, “Well, how’s the paralysis?”
In the evening went over to see her. She was wearing a black silk gown and looked handsome. … She is always the same sombre, fascinating, lissom, soft-voiced She! She herself never changes. … What am I to do? I cannot give her up and yet I do not altogether wish to take her to my heart. It distresses me to know how to proceed. I am a wily fish.