nd there in the pitiless night'--thus did thought speak
within her--'you, poor human thing, with the death-white face and eyes
staring in all but distraction, is this the very end of the rapturous
dream which has lulled you whilst destiny wrought your woe? Is it even
now too late to struggle? Is this the wild sorrow of farewell to love,
the beginning of an anguish which shall torture your soul to death? Have
you lost _him_?' For moments it was as though life fought with the last
and invincible enemy. On the spot where she had been standing she sank
powerless to her knees, clinging to the nearest object, her head falling
back.

The clock outside her door struck one; how long the dull vibration
seemed to endure. She was conscious of it, though lying with all but
palsied faculties. It was the first of the divisions which marked her
long vigil; the hours succeeded each other quickly; between voice and
voice there seemed to pass but a single wave of surging thought. But
each new warning of coming day found her nearer the calm of resolve.

Look at this girl, and try to know her. Emily knew but one article of
religion, and that bade her preserve, if need be, at the cost of life,
the purity of her soul. This was the supreme law of her being. The
pieties of kindred were as strong in her as in any heart that ever beat,
but respect for them Could not constrain her to a course which opposed
that higher injunction. Growing with her growth, nourished by the
substance which developed her intellectual force, a sense of all that
was involved in her womanhood had conic to be the guiding principle of
her existence. Imagine the great artist Nature bent upon the creation of
a soul which should hold in subtlest perfection of consciousness every
element essential to the successive ideals of maiden, wife, mother, and
the soul of this girl is pictured. Her religion of beauty was the
symbolic expression of instincts wholly chaste; her body was to her a
temple which preserved a sacred flame, and she could not conceive
existence if once the shrine had suffered desecration. We are apt to
attribute to women indiscriminately at least the outlines of this
consciousness; for the vast majority it confuses itself with the
prescriptions of a traditional dogma, if not with the mere prejudice of
social usage. For Emily no external dogma existed, and the tenor of her
life had aided her in attaining independence of ignoble dictation. Her
views were often str