CHAPTER XV
——And yet I breathed!
But not the breath of human life!
A serpent round my heart was wreathed,
And stung my every thought to strife.
Alike all time! Abhorred all place!
Shuddering I shrunk from nature's face,
Where every line that charmed before,
The blackness of my bosom wore.
Lord Byron.
From long and dangerous faintings, I revived almost to frenzy. I shed no tears. These are the expression of a milder form of suffering. One horrible image filled my soul; one sense of anguish so strong, so terrible, that every other feeling,—every faculty of mind and body was benumbed in its grasp. Vainly did my awful duties summon me to their performance. I was incapable of action, almost of thought. My eye wandered over surrounding objects, but saw them not. The words which were spoken to me conveyed no meaning to my mind.
At length the form of my early friend seemed to flit before me. She spoke; and though I could not follow the meaning of her words, the sounds were those of kindness. The familiar voice, long associated with so many kindly thoughts, reached the heart, waking a milder tone of feeling; and resting my throbbing head upon her breast, I found relief in a passionate burst of tears. Little did I think how small was the share which friendship or compassion could claim in this visit of my friend to the house of mourning! Little did I guess that its chief motive was to rescue the gifts of my prodigality from being confounded with the property of a bankrupt!
She did not long remain with me; for friends more sympathising than she are soon weary of witnessing the unrestrained indulgence of grief. Yet she did not leave me abruptly. She was too much accustomed to follow the smooth path of conciliation, that she continued to pursue it even when it no longer promised advantage; and she satisfied me with some plausible excuse for going, and with a promise of speedy return.
The tears which for many hours I continued to shed relieved my oppressed spirit; and by degrees I awoke to a full sense of my altered state. From the proudest security of affluence,—from a fearless confidence in myself, and in all around me, one fatal stroke had dashed me for ever. A darker storm had burst upon me, and wrought a ruin more deep, more irretrievable. That tie, which not the hardest heart resigns without pain, had been torn from mine with force sudden and terrible; and a pang unutterable had been added to that misfortune which turns love, and reverence, and gratitude into anguish. What could be added to those horrors, except that conscience should rise in her fury to remind me that, when my presence might have soothed my father's sorrows, I had been absent with an injurious purpose; and that the arrows of misfortune had been rendered mortal by the rebellion of his child? This last incurable pang the mercy of Heaven has saved me. I learned that my father died ignorant of my intended flight.