Explore "The Indian Bangle" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
In spite of herself Olive fretted. Her trouble had taken firm hold of her mind, and bade fair now to make havoc of her body. She lost flesh rapidly. In vain Mallow tried to combat this brooding over her father's wrong-doing. He pointed out the futility of it; he urged her -- implored her -- to make the effort to rouse herself. But without result. Her father's sin became with her an ever-present enormity. She was continually dwelling upon it. They tried to get her to work -- to use her hands, employ herself actively, anyhow -- at anything -- so long as, for the time being, it was capable of absorbing her, and thus releasing the terrible tension under which she laboured. At last Mallow saw there was nothing for it but an entire change of scene and surroundings.
"You must go, Olive dear -- away from here, away from all that reminds you of yourself. You shall go abroad at once, Mrs. Purcell shall go with you, and later I will join you, and in six months' time you will return, dear, a totally different woman -- no longer Olive Bellairs, even in name, for we will be married, and you will laugh at yourself and these wretched phantoms of your own raising."