“Then think sometimes of me, without hatred or bitterness, and have a little pity for your poor Nily.”
The letter was written, the envelope sealed, and after much painful hesitation she at length summed up courage to ring for Gerard, to whom she handed it to post. Then a wild terror seized her, and she had a sensation as of icy water running down her back.
Now Gerard was in the street, she thought, now he had reached this house, now that, now he approached the letter-box in the Nassaulaan. And it seemed to her as if she could hear the letter falling into it with a thud, like that of a coffin falling down an open grave. She was on the point of swooning away, for in the terribly overstrung state of her nerves, it seemed to her as though she were surrounded on all sides by tangible terrors and hideous spectres. And all at once, as if awakening from a nightmare, she felt conscious of what she had done, a deed that was irrevocable! She felt herself trembling and quivering all over as in a fever. To-morrow, to-morrow early, Otto would receive the letter, that letter.
Great God, it must not, it could not be! It was her very happiness that she had flung away, because the rest and the peace of that happiness had bored her! Yes, it was her happiness which she had cast away, and which she could never regain.
It seemed to her as though the ceiling would come down and crush her, she could scarcely breathe. And she rushed with faltering steps to the door, out of her room, across the landing and into Betsy’s bedroom.
“Great God—Betsy—Betsy!” she screamed with a choking voice. Betsy was in bed and awoke with a fright. A confused idea of something terrible, a thought of fire, of murder, arose to her mind.
“Who! What! What is it? What is it, Eline?”
“I—oh, great heavens—oh!——”
“What is it, then? What is it, then, Eline?” [[223]]
“I have—I—have——”