Roden jumped to his feet, and went over beside her. “Virginia,” he said, kindly but firmly, “I’m not going to let you talk like this. Good Heaven! those country quacks know as little about medicine as I do; not as much, by Jove! for I’d not have let you leave your bed for a month yet. Come, dear, let me persuade you. Go back to bed. I’ll come and see you to-morrow in your room, if your father’ll let me. You must, Virginia!”
“It ain’t no worse, do you reckon,” she went on, dully, “tuh be in hell than tuh have hell in you? I’ve thought er heap ’bout it. I’ve most answered it, but I’d rather—”
“Hush! hush!” said Roden, imperatively. He thought her delirious, and started to the door to call her nurse.
“Wait!” rang out her voice, with all its old, clear strength. She had risen to her feet. She was there before him. The light from the window behind her struck through her hair, so that she seemed standing between rows of living flame. “I want tuh tell you,” she said. “I didn’t use tuh think I was a coward, but I am—I am!” She beat the palms of her hands together, and tossed back her head as though seeking to be rid of the superflux of agony which tore her. “I kyarn’ bear to say it tuh yo’; I kyarn’ bear to hear yo’ curse me, ez I have so often hearn yo’ in my dreams. I kyarn’ bear—O God!—I kyarn’ bear fur yo’ tuh know me ez I am. O God! O God! this’ll wipe it out, won’t it? This’ll buy me peace?”
“Virginia! Virginia!” said Roden, beside himself. He tried to force her again into her chair.
“Ah! don’t touch me!” she cried out—“don’t yuh touch me, tuh hate me worse than ever when yuh know—Listen—listen hard, ’cause yuh ain’t a-goin’ to bleeve me when first yuh hear. Yuh come here tuh thank me fur savin’ her life. Listen: ’twas me ez tried to kill her—’twas me! me! me!” The last word broke from her with a wild sob, almost vindictive in its urgent violence. She seemed like one who scourges mercilessly his own flesh for its sins against his soul. “I done it—I done it. I tried ter kill her. Listen! You’ve hearn o’ fever bein’ cyar’d in bits o’ ribbon—in leetle bits o’ velvet ribbon—one, two, ten, twenty years? There was a leetle baby died here onc’t. It died o’ th’ fever she liked tuh ’a’ died of. I give her that piece o’ velvet to w’ar roun’ her pretty throat. I went up intuh th’ attic, an’ hunted an’ hunted till I found it in th’ baby’s cradle. I give it to her. I tried to kill her. O my God! Do yo’ want tuh touch me—now?”
He stood and stared on her like one dazed by a sudden blow, though not quite stunned.
“You are crazy,” he said, thickly. “Poor Virginia, you are crazy.”
“O God!” she wailed. “I wisht I wuz—I wisht I wuz! Oh, ef I wuz only like them dumb beasts in th’ stables out thar! Ef I wuz only Bonnibel, then—then—then yuh wouldn’ hate me; an’ ef yuh did, I wouldn’ know.”