CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mary had been waiting at the base of the stairs for several hours before he appeared on the top step, wearing his favorite evening burgundy frock coat. He looked ashen, tired, and sad. When he saw her, his pace quickened and within a moment he was bowing before her. However, before he could utter even the first requisite pleasantry, she stated, “You must take me to the property, to this hovel. I must confront it with my own eyes or I think I shall go mad with horror.”
“But, Mrs. Shelley, Mary—why would you want to be subjected to such?”
“I cannot reconcile with myself that this is not all but a dream, my own imagination, that it is all within my head, that I am so drowned within my own thoughts of horror and fantasy I no longer know what is true and what is not. I m
