I try to be patient, but my cross has been heavy,
and my heart is empty and weary, and I long for the death that
comes so slowly to those who pray to die.
I will try and relate, exactly as it happened, the event which
blighted my life. Though it occurred many years ago, there is no
fear that I should have forgotten any of the minutest
circumstances: they were stamped on my brain too clearly and
burningly, like the brand of a red-hot iron. I see them written in
the wrinkles of my brow, in the dead whiteness of my hair, which
was a glossy brown once, and has known no gradual change from dark
to gray, from gray to white, as with those happy ones who were the
companions of my girlhood, and whose honored age is soothed by the
love of children and grandchildren. But I must not envy them. I
only meant to say that the difficulty of my task has no connection
with want of memory--I remember but too well. But as I take my pen
my hand trembles, my head swims, the old rushing faintness and
Horror comes over me again, and the well-remembered fear is upon
me. Yet I will go on.
This, briefly, is my story: I was a great heiress, I believe,
though I cared little for the fact; but so it was.
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