Death

I remembered her youth and her beauty--the glowing promise of her
mind, and the gentle temper of her heart. I remembered the dear
hours of our first communion--how pure were our delights--how perfect
my felicity. How we moved together as with one being only--beside
the broad streams of our birthplace--under the shelter of shady
pines--morning, and noon, and in the star-lighted night--never once
dreaming that an hour like this would come!

And she seemed so perfect pure, as she was so perfect lovely! Never
did I hear from her lips sentiment that was not--not only virtuous,
but delicate and soft--not only innocent but true--not only true
but fond! Alas! so to fall--so too yield herself at last! To feel
the growth of rank passion--to surrender her pure soul and perfect
form to the base uses of lust--to be no better than the silly harlot,
that, beguiled by her eager vanity, surrenders the precious jewel
in her trust, to the first cunning sharper that assails her with
a smiling lie!

Oh God! how these convictions shook my frame! I had no longer strength
for thought or action. I was feebler than the child, who, lost in
the woods, struggles and sinks at last, through sheer exhaustion,
into sobbing slumber at the foot of the unfeeling tree. I did
not sob. I had no tears. But at intervals, the powers of breathing
becoming choked, and my struggles for relief were expressed in a
groan which I vainly endeavored to keep down. The sense of desolation
was upon me much more strongly than that of either crime or death.
I did not so much feel that she was guilty, as that I was alone!
That, henceforth, I must for ever be alone. This was the terrible
conviction;--and oh! how lone! To lessen its pangs, I strove to
recall the fault for which she perished--to renew the recollection
of those thousand small events, which, thrown together, had seemed
to me mountains of rank and reeking evidence against her. But even
my memory failed me in this effort. All this was a blank. The
few imperfect and shadowy facts which I could recall seemed to me
wholly unimportant in establishing the truth of what I sought to
believe; and I shuddered with the horrible doubt that she might be
innocent! If she were indeed innocent, what am I?