The Henson Journals
Mon 9 July 1923
Volume 35, Page 112
[112]
Monday, July 9th, 1923.
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A telegram from Arthur brought me the news that the expected end had come. Marion died yesterday. It is hard to believe that I can never see her, & talk with her.
The last months have been, I fear, darkly shadowed by bodily pain, and mental anxiety. She spoke to me several times about the probability of her own death preceding Carissima's, and undoubtedly she was much distressed by the loneliness in which that untoward reversion of the natural order would bring the aged lady. My last sight of her was last Wednesday, when she talked incessantly as if in delirium. Whether she knew me or not, I cannot say, but she clasped my hand, and talked incessantly about me. 'Brother – dearest Brother' she kept on saying. As I look back, I do not recall any unkindness that ever occurred between us. We were constantly writing to one another, and I think she knew how greatly I respected her steady self–surrender to duty.
Ralph & Kitty went off to Scotland by the early train. I walked to Westminster, lunched at the Club, attended the National Assembly in the afternoon & dined alone with Ella at the Deanery.
The great heat continues.