'Neither that night, nor for several days, could a word be
obtained from her, nor would she touch food; but, when it was
presented to her, or any one drew near from any cause, she
merely turned away her head, and gave no sign. The teacher saw
that some terrible nervous affection had fallen upon her--that
she grew more and more feverish. She knew not what to do.
'Meanwhile, a new revolution had taken place in the mind of
the passionate but nobly-tempered child. All these months
nothing but the sense of injury had rankled in her heart.
She had gone on in one mood, doing what the demon prompted,
without scruple, and without fear.
'But at the moment of detection, the tide ebbed, and the
bottom of her soul lay revealed to her eye. How black, how
stained, and sad! Strange, strange, that she had not seen
before the baseness and cruelty of falsehood, the loveliness
of truth! Now, amid the wreck, uprose the moral nature, which
never before had attained the ascendant. "But," she thought,
"too late sin is revealed to me in all its deformity, and
sin-defiled, I will not, cannot live. The main-spring of life
is broken.
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