“Because a living sorrow is far harder to bear than a dead one! because we are each of us a living sorrow to the others?” said Hollis Elverton, gloomily.
“Oh! this is terrible! But why is it best that we all should die—I in my youth, you and her in your prime of life, prematurely as though we were not fit to cumber the earth?”
“Because we are not fit to cumber the earth—the dust should hide us!” cried Hollis Elverton, with such a sudden change of voice and manner, such a savage energy of tone and gesture, such a fierce gathering of the brows, glare of the eyes, and writhing of the lips, that his daughter, looking up at him, suddenly shrieked aloud, and covered her face with her hands, for she feared she was in the presence of a madman, if not even in the power of a demoniac.
“Alma,” he continued, sternly and pitilessly, in despite of her condition, “this horrifies you; yet, though the words should kill you, I repeat them—it is better that we should die, and return to dust!”
“He wishes indeed to kill me when he uses such awful words,” thought the shuddering girl, as she shrank more and more into herself, and cowered nearer and nearer to the ground.
“Alma, there is a misfortune so unnatural that it has been forever nameless in all languages; so degrading that it infects with a worse than moral leprosy all connected with it; so fatal, that nothing but the death of the victim can cure it; nothing but the resolution of the body into its original elements, and its resurrection in another form of being, and into another sphere of life can regenerate it! Alma, such a dire misfortune was mine, and hers, and yours!”
“Oh, this is horrible—most horrible! But what is it, then? Give the fatality some name,” cried Alma, distractedly.
“I told you it was nameless, but not cureless; for death is the certain remedy. Therefore, die, Alma, die!”
“Father, I am called a Christian, though most unworthy of the name; and nothing on earth would induce me to cast away my Maker’s gift of life.”
“Nor do I mean that, either! For though hoping, longing, praying for our deaths, I would not lay sacrilegious hands on my life, hers, or yours; for murder and suicide are crimes of the deepest dye, and I would not burden my soul with even a venial sin; yet, Alma, die if you can!”