He had promised to spend some hours with me one afternoon but a violent and continual rain[66] prevented him.  I was alone the whole evening.  I had passed two whole years alone unrepining, but now I was miserable.  He could not really care for me, I thought, for if he did the storm would rather have made him come even if I had not expected him, than, as it did, prevent a promised visit.  He would well know that this drear sky and gloomy rain would load my spirit almost to madness:  if the weather had been fine I should not have regretted his absence as heavily as I necessarily must shut up in this miserable cottage with no companions but my own wretched thoughts.  If he were truly my friend he would have calculated all this; and let me now calculate this boasted friendship, and discover its real worth.  He got over his grief for Elinor, and the country became dull to him, so he was glad to find even me for amusement; and when he does not know what else to do he passes his lazy hours here, and calls this friendship—­It is true that his presence is a consolation to me, and that his words are sweet, and, when he will he can pour forth thoughts that win me from despair.  His words are sweet,—­and so, truly, is the honey of the bee, but the bee has a sting, and unkindness is a worse smart that that received from an insect’s venom.  I will[67] put him to the proof.  He says all hope is dead to him, and I know that it is dead to me, so we are both equally fitted for death.  Let me try if he will die with me; and as I fear to die alone, if he will accompany [me] to cheer me, and thus he can shew himself my friend in the only manner my misery will permit.[68]

It was madness I believe, but I so worked myself up to this idea that I could think of nothing else.  If he dies with me it is well, and there will be an end of two miserable beings; and if he will not, then will I scoff at his friendship and drink the poison before him to shame his cowardice.  I planned the whole scene with an earnest heart and franticly set my soul on this project.  I procured Laudanum and placing it in two glasses on the table, filled my room with flowers and decorated the last scene of my tragedy with the nicest care.  As the hour for his coming approached my heart softened and I wept; not that I gave up my plan, but even when resolved the mind must undergo several revolutions of feeling before it can drink its death.

Now all was ready and Woodville came.  I received him at the door of my cottage and leading him solemnly into the room, I said:  “My friend, I wish to die.  I am quite weary of enduring the misery which hourly I do endure, and I will throw it off.  What slave will not, if he may, escape from his chains?  Look, I weep:  for more than two years I have never enjoyed one moment free from anguish.  I have often desired to die; but I am a very coward.  It is hard for one so young who was once so happy as I was; [sic] voluntarily to divest themselves