“Dreary, dreary, dreary,
Passes life away,
Dreary, dreary, dreary,
The day
Glides on, and weary
Is my hypocrisy.”
At the close of the second stanza were these lines:
“Happy as the hopes
Which filled my trusting heart,
Before I knew a sinful wish
Or learned a sinful art.”
“So long this secret have I kept
I can’t forswear it now.
It festers in my bosom,
It cankers in my heart,
Thrice cursed is the slave fast chained
To a deceitful art!”
And last:
“Then the maiden knelt and prayed:
‘Father, my anguish see;
Oh, give me but one trusting hope
Whose heart will shelter me;
One trusting love to share my griefs,
To snatch me from a life forlorn;
That I may never, never, never,
Thus endlessly from night to morn,
Say that my life is dreary
With its hypocrisy!’”
Among the first words that Dr. Kane spoke to Margaret were these: “This is no life for you, my child.” As their reciprocal attraction grew stronger, he bent all of his deep influence over her in one direction, to effect once and for all her release from the fatal snare of deceit that fate had cast about her. Only a few weeks later we find him writing her a note from New York, in which he says:
“Look at the Herald of this morning. There is an account of a suicide which causes some excitement. Your sister’s[6] name is mentioned in the inquest of the coroner. Oh, how much I wish that you would quit this life of dreary sameness and unsuspected deceit. We live in this world only for the good and noble. How crushing it must be to occupy with them a position of ambiguous respect!”
Dr. Kane, a short time afterwards, described Maggie as follows: