CHAPTER XXI.
My temples throbbed; my blood flowed with feverish heat; I felt as if carried away by a burning stream down to some deep, fiery region, where angry voices ever raised a strange clamour, that perpetually drowned my unavailing cry—"I did not do it."
I know not how I reached my room; quietly and simply, I suppose; for when I recovered from this transport of indignant passion, I was lying on my bed and I was alone. I did not weep, I did not moan, I scarcely thought, but I drank deep of the cup of grief which had so suddenly risen to my lips. In youth we do not love sorrow, but when it comes to us we welcome it with strange avidity; there is a luxury, a dreary charm in the first excess of woe. True, we quickly sicken of the bitter draught; I had lain down with the feeling—"There, I am now as miserable as I can be, and yet I care not!" but, alas! how soon I grew faint and weary! how soon from the depths of my wrung heart I cried for relief to Him who knew my innocence, who had never wronged me, who, were I ever so guilty, would have never condemned me unheard!
What was it to me that Cornelius left me his love and his kindness, when I knew and felt, with a keener bitterness than words can convey, that I had for ever lost his esteem? Did I, could I, care for an affection from which the very life had departed? No; child as I was in years, something within me revolted from the mere thought of his tenderness and endearments. If he believed me guilty, then let him hate and detest me: sweeter would be his aversion than such fondness as he could bestow on one whom, the more he forgave her, the more he must despise.
This resentful feeling—better to be hated than weakly loved—bore with it no consolation. I still groaned under the intolerable load of so much misery. Spirit and flesh both revolted against it, and said it was beyond endurance; that, anything save that, I would bear cheerfully, but that I could not bear; that sickness would be pleasant, and death itself would be sweet in comparison. And as I thought thus, I remembered the time when I was near dying, when Cornelius wept over me, and I should have carried in my grave his regard as well as his tears, and I passionately questioned the Providence that rules our fate. I asked why I had been spared for this? why I was thought guilty when I was innocent? why Cornelius disbelieved me? why there was no hope that I should ever be acquitted by him? why the only being for whose good opinion I would have given all it was mine to give, had been the very one to condemn me? Had I looked into my heart, I might there have found the stern reply—"By his idol let the idolater perish." But I did not. I only dwelt on the galling fact, that though guiltless, there was no hope for me, and I sank into as violent a fit of despair as if this were a new discovery. I wept passionately at first, then slowly, unconsciously. My head ached; my heavy eyes closed; I did not sleep, but I sank into the apathy of subdued grief.
I know not how long I had been thus when the door opened, and Kate—I knew her step—entered. She came up to my bed, bent over me, and seeing my eyes closed, whispered—
"Are you asleep, Daisy?"
A slight motion of my head implied the denial I could not speak. She took my hand, said it felt cold, went into the next room, whence she brought some heavy garment, with which she covered me. I felt rather than saw her lingering by me; then I heard her leaving the room softly. My heart swelled as the door closed on her. Not one word of faith or doubt had she uttered, and yet her voice was both compassionate and kind. It was plain that she too thought me guilty, pitied, and forgave me.
"Be it so!" I thought, with sullen and bitter grief: "let every one accuse me, I acquit myself; let no one believe in me, I keep faith in my own truth. I shall learn how to do without their approbation and their belief."
I remained in this mood, until, after the lapse of some hours, Kate once more came near me. Again she bent over me and asked if I slept. I opened my heavy eyes, but, dazzled by the light, I soon closed them again.