"Perhaps it is my fault! I shouldn't have told her about the rumours about her husband! I should have kept quiet instead of hurting her delicate soul. Jeremy was like that before he married her. Marriage has changed him for the better, I hope. The way his eyes light up when he looks at Vivian. That's true love! I think I've hurt her by spreading these dirty rumours… Well, I can only reap the consequences of my own stupidity!" – "Alas, I seem to have caught a cold and won't leave my bedroom," Charlotte thought in despair.
Carefully folding the note, the girl went up to her bedroom and put it in the drawer of her desk, where she kept all correspondence from her friend.
"But I must answer her… I don't know what I can write if, ever since she left the new Mrs. Wington's church, my life has been a bore… And I thought I was going to spend all my days at their house from now on! And my parents still haven't come back… I'm all alone in this big, unfriendly town!" – Charlotte sat down at the table, put a blank sheet of paper in front of her, dipped her quill in the inkwell and wrote: "I hope you feel better soon. I confess I am coughing a little myself, but Sarah is preparing for me my favourite hot tea with lemon and sugar. 'My dear, I miss you. I pray to God to give us a chance to see each other. I have said it many times before, but I will say it again now: if you have something to share with me, please share it with me, because I suddenly feel like you are drifting away from me. With every letter you write, with every note you write. Please tell me I'm wrong. Yours Charlotte."
The girl folded the sheet of paper beautifully into a small note, sealed it with the seal of the Saltones' coat of arms, and, clicking Sarah, told her to give the note to the Wingtons' messenger. Then, rummaging through the drawers of her desk, Charlotte found the brief note which Anthony Cranford had left her when he left, and, resolutely taking a blank sheet of paper, she began to write him a letter, hoping to find from him answers to her questions about Vivian's present situation and her health. Her friend had been ill too often, and this was worrying Charlotte.
After writing two sheets of paper without even rereading it, she put the paper in an envelope, wrote the address of Devry Manor, where Anthony had gone, and, finding Mrs. Anderson, the housekeeper, gave her the letter to send. It was only when Mrs. Anderson took the letter and was out of her sight that the girl felt some mental relief.