agedy.
No: the curtain had not yet fallen, yet our young lady had begun to
yawn. To yawn? Ay, and to long for the afterpiece. Since the tragedy
dragged, might she not divert herself with that well-bred man beside
her?

Elizabeth was far from owning to herself that she had fallen away from
her love. For my own part, I need no better proof of the fact than the
dull persistency with which she denied it. What accusing voice broke out
of the stillness? Jack's nobleness and magnanimity were the hourly theme
of her clogged fancy. Again and again she declared to herself that she
was unworthy of them, but that, if he would only recover and come home,
she would be his eternal bond-slave. So she passed a very miserable
month. Let us hope that her childish spirit was being tempered to some
useful purpose. Let us hope so.

She roamed about the empty house with her footsteps tracked by an unlaid
ghost. She cried aloud and said that she was very unhappy; she groaned
and called herself wicked. Then, sometimes, appalled at her moral
perplexities, she declared that she was neither wicked nor unhappy; she
was contented, patient, and wise. Other girls had lost their lovers: it
was the present way of life. Was she weaker than most women? Nay, but
Jack was the best of men. If he would only come back directly, without
delay, as he was, senseless, dying even, that she might look at him,
touch him, speak to him! Then she would say that she could no longer
answer for herself, and wonder (or pretend to wonder) whether she were
not going mad. Suppose Mrs. Ford should come back and find her in an
unswept room, pallid and insane? or suppose she should die of her
troubles? What if she should kill herself?--dismiss the servants, and
close the house, and lock herself up with a knife? Then she would cut
her arm to escape from dismay at what she had already done; and then her
courage would ebb away with her blood, and, having so far pledged
herself to despair, her life would ebb away with her courage; and then,
alone, in darkness, with none to help her, she would vainly scream, and
thrust the knife into her temple, and swoon to death. And Jack would
come back, and burst into the house, and wander through the empty rooms,
calling her name, and for all answer get a death-scent! These imaginings
were the more creditable or discreditable to Lizzie, that she had never
read "Romeo and Juliet." At any rate, they served to dissipate
time,--heavy, weary time,--