he said with sudden animation:

'How can I help it, Margaret? What am I to do? She has been to me
again!'

'Again!' cried Meg, clasping her hands. 'O, does she think of me
so often! Has she been again!'

'Twenty times again,' said Richard. 'Margaret, she haunts me. She
comes behind me in the street, and thrusts it in my hand. I hear
her foot upon the ashes when I'm at my work (ha, ha! that an't
often), and before I can turn my head, her voice is in my ear,
saying, "Richard, don't look round. For Heaven's love, give her
this!" She brings it where I live: she sends it in letters; she
taps at the window and lays it on the sill. What CAN I do? Look
at it!'

He held out in his hand a little purse, and chinked the money it
enclosed.

'Hide it,' sad Meg. 'Hide it! When she comes again, tell her,
Richard, that I love her in my soul. That I never lie down to
sleep, but I bless her, and pray for her. That, in my solitary
work, I never cease to have her in my thoughts. That she is with
me, night and day. That if I died to-morrow, I would remember her
with my last breath. But, that I cannot look upon it!'

He slowly recalled his hand, and crushing the purse together, said
with a kind of drowsy thoughtfulness: