Access Online - The European Library

284 BLACK SHEEP.this was the night yvhich was to have brought her,with utter despair for herself,rest.Rest of body,yvhich she hacl never so sorely needed, and hadnever felt so impossible of attainment.Her ironstrength and endurance yvere gone now. Heryy-hole frame ached, her nerves thrilled like thestrings of a musical instrument, a terrible interiordistraction and hurry came over her at intervals,and seemed to sweep away her consciousness ofreality- without deadening her sense of suffering.She did not now wonder whether she was goingmad; since she had known the very, very worstof her own fate, that fear had entirely left her.She wondered nowyvhether she yvas dying. Wondered,with some curiosity, but no fear ; wondered,with a vague feeling of the strangeness ofthe irruption of utter nothingness into such achaos of suffering ancl dread as life had become toher.There would be rest, but not the consciousnessofit; she would no more exist. Alittle whileago she would have shrunk from that, becauselove remained to her;but now — If she could butknow the worst, know the truth, knowthat hecouldnot be saved, or that he was safe, she would