She was, according to the boy, furious when she received the letter and beat him unmercifully.
“She hates me – she hates me,” Simon cried, “and she wants me to die – like Papa.”
“You must try to forget about her,”
Lolita attempted to calm him down. She could not bear him to be upset, so she kissed him and told him a story so that he would not think any more about his stepmother.
Equally she could not help wondering, if her stepfather found her, what she could do about Simon. She knew that she could not abandon him to his stepmother as she was sure that what he had said of her hatred for him was true.
Lolita’s conclusion was actually confirmed when they spent the first night in a quiet village at the inn recommended by the owner of the livery stable.
The inn was a little larger than t
