God, do you know I said that, and _meant_ it? I said more--I sat and whispered it to myself: “Let them take it, yes, let them! I don't care--it will set me free--I shall have some money! But they're fools to do it, they're fools!” * * * * * March 11th. I tremble with excitement all the day, dreaming about that thing. I go about half-mad. “Oh, just think of it,” I whisper, “just think of it!” I linger about it hungrily! He spoke as if he really meant to make them take it. * * * * * March 13th. I went to see him to-day to ask. No, they had not let him know yet, but they had the manuscript. He would write me. I made up my mind that I would not bother him again. I will wait, hard as it is. * * * * * I sat asking myself to-day, “Do you really mean that you believe that poem is going to stir the world--this huge, heedless world you see about you? Have you truly that blind, unreasoning faith that you try to persuade yourself you have?” * * * * * Ah, I don't know what I believe now. Only, once I had my young courage,--I feared not the world, I could do anything. Now I am but one among a million. * * * * * March 16th. I force myself to read these things that half-interest me; but I think I spend a quarter of my time wandering about whispering that they are going to publish it. I cry out, “Oh, they must!” I go into the library and stare at the magazine and think of it there. I walk past the publishers', and think of it there! I have been inquiring all about publishing, about terms and all that sort of thing. It makes my brain reel--why, they might pay me five hundred dollars for it! Think of it--five hundred dollars!--I could go crazy with such a thought as that. And then I think what the reviews will say of it, and I cry, “Oh, no, it can't be true!” Again I find myself saying, “Only let them take it! I don't care about the rest, whether it succeeds or not--let them take it!” * * * * * March 18th. I walked past the editor's office to-day. It took just every bit of will that I had, not to go in. I said: “He might know even now, and I wouldn't hear till to-morrow!” But I didn't do it. I said I would wait a week, anyhow. * * * * * March 20th. I don't know what in the world to make of it. The week ended to-day, and nothing yet; and I hit upon another scheme, I went to the publishers. I said: “I will ask them, and he needn't know anything about it and it won't bother him.” So I went in and they referred me to the manuscript clerk. She said she had never heard of The Captive. “But it's here somewhere,” I said, “the editor brought it here.” “There is no manuscript ever comes here,” she answered, “that is not entered on my books.” “But,” I said, “some member of the firm must have it.”