Explore "The House of Martha" by Frank R. Stockton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A Saturday afternoon, evening, and night, the whole of a Sunday and its night, with some hours of a Monday morning, intervened between the moment at which I had acknowledged to myself my feelings toward my secretary and the moment at which I might expect to see her again, and nearly the whole of this time was occupied by me in endeavoring to determine what should be my next step. To stand still in my present position was absolutely impossible: I must go forward or backward. To go backward was a simple thing enough; it was like turning round and jumping down a precipice; it made me shudder. To go forward was like climbing a precipice with beetling crags and perpendicular walls of ice.
The first of these alternatives did not require any consideration whatever. To the second I gave all the earnest consideration of which I was capable, but I saw no way of getting up. The heights were inaccessible.