He was
cursed by his atrocious temper; he had been cursed by a half-mad
wife, who drank and went on the streets. His daughter was totally
mad--and yet he believed in the goodness of human nature. He
believed that Leonora would take the trouble to go all the way to
Ceylon in order to soothe his daughter. Leonora wouldn't. Leonora
didn't ever want to see Nancy again. I daresay that that, in the
circumstances, was natural enough. At the same time she agreed,
as it were, on public grounds, that someone soothing ought to go
from Branshaw to Ceylon. She sent me and her old nurse, who
had looked after Nancy from the time when the girl, a child of
thirteen, had first come to Branshaw. So off I go, rushing through
Provence, to catch the steamer at Marseilles. And I wasn't the
least good when I got to Ceylon; and the nurse wasn't the least
good. Nothing has been the least good. The doctors said, at
Kandy, that if Nancy could be brought to England, the sea air, the
change of climate, the voyage, and all the usual sort of things,
might restore her reason. Of course, they haven't restored her
reason. She is, I am aware, sitting in the hall, forty paces from
where I am now writing.
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