Daisy: the autobiography of a cat

by Miranda Eliot Swan

She looked with a dazed expression. She trembled all over if he touched her, and made no answer to his words of tenderness. He telegraphed for one of the best physicians and a nurse. And then, with the aid of her maid, who was very much attached to her mistress, he made her as comfortable as possible.

The maid could give no explanation of the cause of her sickness. Her mistress had received several letters, and had been shut up in her room writing for some hours. She had taken her some toast and tea, though she did not care to take it. She thought she had taken a chill, for she was shivering and looked very white. She said she would sleep, and did not wish to be disturbed. So the maid left her, and had heard nothing of her since, till called by him on his return.

Though conscious when the doctor and nurse came, she closed her eyes and never spoke a word. After an examination the doctor said, "She has evidently received some shock that has unbalanced her mind." He advised her husband to keep away from her, as the moment he came near her she trembled and shrunk away from him.

It was torture to her husband, but his knowledge taught him that the doctor was right—that the nearest and dearest are always turned from by the diseased mind. Though he never left the dressing room, he kept out of her sight.

Two days from the time she was taken sick she died, and her little son followed her a few hours after. She never spoke to them, though they believed her to be conscious. Their agony and grief did not move her at all, and in the last few hours convulsions prevented any attempt to make her speak.

This was a crushing blow to her husband. To lose her without one word prostrated him. He was to know a deeper sorrow—one that would admit of no consolation. It was a long time before he could look over her papers; but at last it was necessary, and he aroused himself. Then came retribution indeed.

A package met his eye, on opening her desk, directed to him in the handwriting of his wife. The date on the outside convinced him that she had written it soon after he had left her that fatal morning. It contained a letter in a masculine hand, but the letter from his wife he read first.

From that moment his life was ended. He spoke to no one of his friends of his sorrow, giving the charge of their home into the hands of the aunt with whom his wife had lived, and then he left his home, to travel alone.

The letter from his wife, and the one she had received that had caused all her sorrow, was sent to her aunt, at his death, with a letter he had also written. The letter from his wife explained all. She wrote him that after reading the enclosed letter all love for him had died out of her heart, leaving only disgust. She could not endure the thought of him as her husband. She was determined rather than live with him she would take her own life and her child's. She could read only cruel thoughts in his face, and her life would be filled with the dread that she and her child would be subjects for his knife.

"My dear Little Blossom was like a child, and I can see her delicate limbs quivering while you tortured her. I should go mad to live with you, for her dear little face would always be before me."