But no sooner was her head turned from the dire object, than alarm for her sister took possession of her soul; and with what recollection she possessed, she determined to go to Belfont.
An idea of any active service invigorates the body as well as the mind. She made another effort to depart, but a glance she knew not how to avoid shewed her, upon the coat of the right arm and right side of this ghastly figure, large splashes of blood.
With horrour thus accumulate, she now sunk upon the floor, inwardly exclaiming: He is murdered indeed!... and where may be Eugenia?
A woman who had in charge to watch by the corpse, but who had privately stolen out for some refreshment, now returning, saw with affright the new person in the room, and ran to call Mrs. Marl; who, alarmed also at the sight of the young lady, and at her deplorable condition, assisted the woman to remove her from the apartment, and convey her to the chamber, where she was laid down upon the bed, though she resisted being undressed, and was seized with an aguish shivering fit, while her eyes seemed emitting sparks of fire.
'It is certainly now,' cried she, 'over, and hence I move no more!'
The joy with which, a few minutes before, she would have welcomed such a belief, was now converted into an awe unspeakable, undefinable. The wish of death is commonly but disgust of life, and looks forward to nothing further than release from worldly care:—but the something yet beyond ... the something unknown, untried, yet to come, the bourne whence no traveller returns to prepare succeeding passengers for what they may expect, now abruptly presented itself to her consideration, ... but came to scare, not to soothe.
All here, she cried, I have wished to leave ... but ... have I fitted myself for what I am to meet?
Conscience now suddenly took the reins from the hands of imagination, and a mist was cleared away that hitherto, obscuring every duty by despondence, had hidden from her own perceptions the faulty basis of her desire. Conscience took the reins—and a mist was cleared away that had concealed from her view the cruelty of this egotism.
Those friends, it cried, which thus impatiently thou seekest to quit, have they not loved, cherished, reared thee with the most exquisite care and kindness? If they are offended, who has offended them? If thou art now abandoned, may it not be from necessity, or from accident? When thou hast inflicted upon them the severe pain of harbouring anger against what is so dear to them, wouldst thou load them with regret that they manifested any sensibility of thy errours? Hast thou plunged thy house in calamity, and will no worthier wish occur to thee, than to leave it to its sorrows and distress, with the aggravating pangs of causing thy afflicting, however blamable self-desertion? of coming to thee ... perhaps even now!... with mild forgiveness, and finding thee a self-devoted corpse?—not fallen, indeed, by the profane hand of daring suicide, but equally self-murdered through wilful self-neglect.
Had the voice been allowed sound which spoke this dire admonition, it could scarcely with more horrour, or keener repentance have struck her. 'That poor man,' she cried, 'now delivering up his account, by whatever hand he perished, since less principled, less instructed than myself, may be criminal, perhaps, with less guilt!'