She had no impulse to suicide, but was a woman of unlimited selflessness,
who, believing that her death would make life easier to her children,
would have gone to it without any fuss.
Sometimes, with little Franky, on a Sunday afternoon, she had walked by
the side of the river where it ran away from the ugly black wharves upon
its shores to the meadows where Franky loved to see the toads slip down
through the weeds to the clear water, loved to get his boots wet in trying
to catch the darting minnows in his hands, loved to gather the
forget-me-nots, and river-mint, and ragged robin, to carry home to Deleah.
She knew exactly the spot, where if she was only sure it would be best for
Bessie, for Deleah, for poor, poor Bernard, she would slip down the
shelving bank and go wading, wading in, till out of her depth and weighed
down by her clothes she would sink out of sight, out of trouble, out of
life. She had no illusions about the enfolding in the "cool and comforting
arms of death." She knew quite well the horror of it, the choke, with the
rank, foul-tasting river in her mouth, its weeds and offal winding her
limbs. But that would pass, and she would be out of it. Far rather would
she be dead at the bottom of the river than married to her benefactor, Mr.
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