_Menton, November 13, 1873._
I must pour out my disgust at the absence of a letter; my birthday
nearly gone, and devil a letter--I beg pardon. After all, now I think of
it, it is only a week since I left.
I have here the nicest room in Mentone. Let me explain. Ah! there's the
bell for the _table d'hote_. Now to see if there is anyone conversable
within these walls.
In the interval my letters have come; none from you, but one from Bob,
which both pained and pleased me. He cannot get on without me at all, he
writes; he finds that I have been the whole world for him; that he only
talked to other people in order that he might tell me afterwards about
the conversation. Should I--I really don't know quite what to feel; I am
so much astonished, and almost more astonished that he should have
expressed it than that he should feel it; he never would have _said_ it,
I know. I feel a strange sense of weight and responsibility.--Ever your
faithful friend, R. L. S.