Beulah - Page 255/348

"Suffer! Yes; almost all the time. But it is not the bodily torture

that troubles me so much--I could bear that in silence. It is my

mind, Beulah; my mind."

She pointed to a chair; Beulah drew it near her, and Cornelia

continued: "I thought I should die suddenly; but it is to be otherwise The

torture is slow, lingering. I shall never leave this house again,

except to go to my final home. Beulah, I have wanted to see you very

much; I thought you would hear of my illness and come. How calm and

pale you are! Give me your hand. Ah, cool and pleasant; mine parched

with fever. And you have a little home of your own, I hear. How have

things gone with you since we parted? Are you happy?"

"My little home is pleasant, and my wants are few," replied Beulah.

"Have you seen Eugene recently?"

"Not since his marriage."

A bitter laugh escaped Cornelia's lips, as she writhed an instant,

and then said: "I knew how it would be. I shall not live to see the end, but you

will. Ha, Beulah! already he has discovered his mistake. I did not

expect it so soon; I fancied Antoinette had more policy. She has

dropped the mask. He sees himself wedded to a woman completely

devoid of truth; he knows her now as she is--as I tried to show him

she was before it was too late; and, Beulah, as I expected, he has

grown reckless--desperate. Ah, if you could have witnessed a scene

at the St. Nicholas, in New York, not long since, you would have

wept over him. He found his bride heartless; saw that she preferred

the society of other gentlemen to his; that she lived only for the

adulation of the crowd; and one evening, on coming home to the

hotel, found she had gone to the opera with a party she knew he

detested. Beulah, it sickens me when I think of his fierce railings,

and anguish, and scorn. He drank in mad defiance, and when she

returned greeted her with imprecations that would have bowed any

other woman, in utter humiliation, into the dust. She laughed

derisively, told him he might amuse himself as he chose, she would

not heed his wishes as regarded her own movements. Luckily, my

parents knew nothing of it; they little suspected, nor do they now

know, why I was taken so alarmingly ill before dawn. I am glad I am

to go so soon. I could not endure to witness his misery and

disgrace."