"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."