ed, and that I was a creature cursed and
set apart by nature. I thought that like another Cain, I had a mark
set on my forehead to shew mankind that there was a barrier between me
and they [_sic_].[72] Woodville had told me that there was in my
countenance an expression as if I belonged to another world; so he had
seen that sign: and there it lay a gloomy mark to tell the world that
there was that within my soul that no silence could render
sufficiently obscure. Why when fate drove me to become this outcast
from human feeling; this monster with whom none might mingle in
converse and love; why had she not from that fatal and most accursed
moment, shrouded me in thick mists and placed real darkness between me
and my fellows so that I might never more be seen?, [_sic_] and as I
passed, like a murky cloud loaded with blight, they might only
perceive me by the cold chill I should cast upon them; telling them,
how truly, that something unholy was near? Then I should have lived
upon this dreary heath unvisited, and blasting none by my unhallowed
gaze. Alas! I verily believe that if the near prospect of death did
not dull and soften my bitter [fe]elings, if for a few months longer I
had continued to live as I then lived, strong in body, but my soul
corrupted to its core by a deadly cancer[,] if day after day I had
dwelt on these dreadful sentiments I should have become mad, and
should have fancied myself a living pestilence: so horrible to my own
solitary thoughts did this form, this voice, and all this wretched
self appear; for had it not been the source of guilt that wants a
name?[73]

This was superstition. I did not feel thus franticly when first I knew
that the holy name of father was become a curse to me: but my lonely
life inspired me with wild thoughts; and then when I saw Woodville &
day after day he tried to win my confidence and I never dared give
words to my dark tale, I was impressed more strongly with the
withering fear that I was in truth a marked creature, a pariah, only
fit for death.

[F] Spencer's Faery Queen Book 1--Canto [9]

CHAPTER XII

As I was perpetually haunted by these ideas, you may imagine that the
influence of Woodville's words was very temporary; and that although I
did not again accuse him of unkindness, yet I soon became as unhappy
as before. Soon after this incident we parted. He heard that his
mother was ill, and he hastened to her. He came to take leave of me,
and we walked t