She felt neither grief nor fear. Through much suffering, thought and sensation were, to a great extent, dead in her; and, in a sort of emotive numbness, she laid her candlestick in its usual place on the chair by her bedside; and, sitting up in bed, her night-dress carefully buttoned, holding the tumbler half-filled with chloral, she tried to take a dispassionate survey of her life. She thought of what she had endured, and what she would have to endure if she did not take it. Then she felt she must go, and without hesitation drank off the chloral. She placed the tumbler by the candlestick, and lay down, remembering vaguely that a long time ago she had decided that suicide was not wrong in itself. The last thing she remembered was the clock striking eleven.
For half an hour she slept like stone. Then her eyes opened, and they told of sickness now in motion within her. And, strangely enough, through the overpowering nausea rising from her stomach to her brain, the thought that she was not going to die appeared perfectly clear, and with it a sense of disappointment; she would have to begin it all over again. It was with great difficulty that she struck a match and lighted a candle. It seemed impossible to get up. At last she managed to slip her legs out of bed, and found she could stand, and through the various assaults of retching she thought of the letter: it must be destroyed; and, leaning in the corner against the wall and the wardrobe, she tried to recover herself. A dull, deep sleep was pressing on her brain, and she thought she would never be able to cross the room to where the letter was. Dandy looked out of his rug; she caught sight of his bright eyes.
On cold and shaky feet she attempted to make her way towards the letter; but the room heaved up at her, and, fearing she should fall, and knowing if she did that she would not be able to regain her feet, she clung to the toilette-table. She must destroy that letter: if it were found, they would watch her; and, however impossible her life might become, she would not be able to escape from it. This consideration gave her strength for a final effort. She tore the letter into very small pieces, and then, clinging to a chair, strove to grasp the rail of the bed; but the bed rolled worse than any ship. Making a supreme effort, she got in; and then, neither dreams nor waking thoughts, but oblivion complete. Hours and hours passed, and when she opened her eyes her maid stood over the bed, looking at her.
'Oh, miss, you looked so tired and ill that I didn't wake you. You do seem poorly, miss. It is nearly two o'clock. Should you like to sleep a little longer, or shall I bring you up some breakfast?'
'No, no, no, thank you. I couldn't touch anything. I'm feeling wretched; but I'll get up.'
The maid tried to dissuade her; but Emily got out of bed, and allowed herself to be dressed. She was very weak—so weak that she could hardly stand up at the washstand; and the maid had to sponge her face and neck. But when she had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a little piece of toast, she said she felt better, and was able to walk into the drawing-room. She thought no more of death, nor of her troubles; thought drowned in her; and in a passive, torpid state she sat looking into the fire till dinner-time, hardly caring to bestow a casual caress on Dandy, who seemed conscious of his mistress's neglect, for, in his sly, coaxing way, he sometimes came and rubbed himself against her feet. She went into the dining-room, and the servant was glad to see that she finished her soup, and, though she hardly tasted it, she finished a wing of a chicken, and also the glass of wine which the man pressed upon her. Half an hour after, when he brought out the tea, he found her sitting on her habitual chair nursing her dog, and staring into the fire so drearily that her look frightened him, and he hesitated before he gave her the letter which had just come up from the town; but it was marked 'Immediate.'
When he left the room she opened it. It was from Mrs. Bentley:—
'Dearest Emily,—I know that Hubert told you that he was not going to marry me. He thought he was not, for I had refused to marry him; but a short time after we met in the park quite accidentally, and—well, fate took the matter out of our hands, and we are to be married to-morrow. Hubert insists on going to Italy, and I believe we shall remain there two months. We have made arrangements for your aunt to live with you until we come back; and when we do come back, I hope all the little unpleasantnesses which have marred our friendship for this last month or two will be forgotten. So far as I am concerned, nothing shall be left undone to make you happy. Your will shall be law at Ashwood so long as I am there. If you would like to join us in Italy, you have only to say the word. We shall be delighted to have you.'
Emily could read no more. 'Join them in Italy!' She dashed the letter into the fire, and an intense hatred of them both pierced her heart and brain. It was the kiss of Judas. Oh, those hateful, lying words! To live here with her aunt until they came back, to wait here quietly until she returned in triumph with him—him who had been all the world to her. Oh no; that was not possible. Death, death—escape she must. But how? She had no more chloral. Suddenly she thought of the lake. 'Yes, yes; the lake, the lake!' And then a keen, swift, passionate longing for death, such as she had not felt at all the night before, came upon her. There was the knowledge too that by killing herself she would revenge herself on those who had killed her. She was just conscious that her suicide would have this effect, but hardly a trace of such intention appeared in the letter she wrote; it was as melancholy and as brief as the letter she had torn up, and ended, like it, with a request that Dandy should be well looked after. She had only just directed the envelope when she heard the servant coming to take away the tea-things. She concealed the letter; and when his steps died away in the corridor and the house-door closed, she knew she could slip out unobserved. Instinctively she thought of her hat and jacket, and, without a shudder, remembered she would not need them. She sped down the pathway through the shadow of the firs.