and anguish, and scorn.  He drank in mad defiance, and when she returned greeted her with imprecations that would have bowed any other woman, in utter humiliation, into the dust.  She laughed derisively, told him he might amuse himself as he chose, she would not heed his wishes as regarded her own movements.  Luckily, my parents knew nothing of it; they little suspected, nor do they now know, why I was taken so alarmingly ill before dawn.  I am glad I am to go so soon.  I could not endure to witness his misery and disgrace.”

She closed her eyes and groaned.

“What induced her to marry him?” asked Beulah.

“Only her own false heart knows.  But I have always believed she was chiefly influenced by a desire to escape from the strict discipline to which her father subjected her at home.  Her mother was anything but a model of propriety; and her mother’s sister, who was Dr. Hartwell’s wife, was not more exemplary.  My uncle endeavored to curb Antoinette’s dangerous fondness for display and dissipation, and she fancied that, as Eugene’s wife, she could freely plunge into gayeties which were sparingly allowed her at home.  I know she does not love Eugene; she never did; and, assuredly, his future is dark enough.  I believe, if she could reform him she would not; his excesses sanction, or at least in some degree palliate, hers.  Oh, Beulah, I see no hope for him!”

“Have you talked to him kindly, Cornelia?  Have you faithfully exerted your influence to check him in his route to ruin?”

“Talked to him?  Aye; entreated, remonstrated, upbraided, used every argument at my command.  But I might as well talk to the winds and hope to hush their fury.  I shall not stay to see his end; I shall soon be silent and beyond all suffering.  Death is welcome, very welcome.”

Her breathing was quick and difficult, and two crimson spots burned on her sallow cheeks.  Her whole face told of years of bitterness, and a grim defiance of death, which sent a shudder through Beulah, as she listened to the panting breath.  Cornelia saturated her handkerchief with some delicate perfume from a crystal vase, and, passing it over her face, continued: 

“They tell me it is time I should be confirmed; talk vaguely of seeing preachers, and taking the sacrament, and preparing myself, as if I could be frightened into religion and the church.  My mother seems just to have waked up to a knowledge of my spiritual condition, as she calls it.  Ah, Beulah, it is all dark before me; black, black as midnight!  I am going down to an eternal night; down to annihilation.  Yes, Beulah; soon I shall descend into what Schiller’s Moor calls the ‘nameless yonder.’  Before long I shall have done with mystery; shall be sunk into unbroken rest.”  A ghastly smile parted her lips as she spoke.

“Cornelia, do you fear death?”