"No; I am glad you came. I was listening to cold, bitter, bitter
thoughts. Sit down, Clara; you look fatigued."
"Oh, Beulah! I am weary in body and spirit; I have no energy; my
very existence is a burden to me."
"Clara, it is weak to talk so. Rouse yourself, and fulfill the
destiny for which you were created."
"I have no destiny but that of loneliness and misery."
"Our situations are similar, yet I never repine as you do."
"You have not the same cause. You are self-reliant; need no society
to conduce to your happiness; your heart is bound up in your books."
"Where yours had better have been," answered Beulah. She walked
across the floor several times, then said impressively, as she threw
her arm round Clara's waist: "Crush it; crush it; if you crush your heart in the effort."
A moan escaped Clara's lips, and she hid her face against her
friend's shoulder.
"I have known it since the night of your grandfather's death. If you
want to be happy and useful, crush it out of your heart."
"I have tried, and cannot."
"Oh, but you can! I tell you there is nothing a woman cannot do,
provided she puts on the armor of duty and unsheathes the sword of a
strong, unbending will. Of course, you can do it, if you will."
"Wait till you feel as I do, Beulah, and it will not seem so light a
task."
"That will never happen. If I live till the next geological period I
never shall love anybody as insanely as you love. Why, Clara, don't
you see that you are wrecking your happiness? What strange
infatuation has seized you?"
"I know now that it is perfectly hopeless," said Clara calmly.
"You might have known it from the first."
"No; it is but recently that the barrier has risen."
"What barrier?" asked Beulah curiously.
"For Heaven's sake, Beulah, do not mock me! You know too well what
separates us."
"Yes; utter uncongeniality."
Clara raised her head, looked into the honest face before her, and
answered: "If that were all, I could yet hope to merit his love; but you know
that is not so. You must know that he has no love to bestow."
Beulah's face seemed instantly steeled. A grayish hue crept over it;
and, drawing her slender form to its full height, she replied, with
haughty coldness: "What do you mean? I can only conjecture."