And so Miss Tabby babbled on, no longer heeded by Sybil, who soon slipped away and hid herself in one of the empty spare rooms.
CHAPTER XIII.
MORE THAN THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH.
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He to whom I gave my heart with all its wealth of love, Forsakes me for another.—Medea. |
“Oh my heart! my heart!” moaned Sybil, as she sank down upon the floor of that spare-room, the door of which she had bolted, to secure herself from intrusion.
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she wailed, pressing her hand to her side like one who had just received a mortal wound.
“Oh, my heart! my heart!” she groaned, as one who complains of an insupportable agony. And for some moments she could do no more than this. Then at length the stream of utterance flowed forth, and—
“He loves me no longer! my husband loves me no longer!” she cried in more than the bitterness of death. “He loves that false siren in place of me, his true wife. He gives her all the tender words, all the warm caresses he used to lavish on me. His heart is won from me. I am desolate! I am desolate, and I shall die! I shall die! But oh, how much I must suffer before I can die, for I am so strong to suffer! Ah, how I wish I might die at once, or that suicide were no sin!”