As if she had known the moment of her death near, she began mechanically
to set every thing in order in the room, and as she came to herself she
was saying, "Let him kill me. I wish he would. I am quite willing to
die by his hand. He will be kind, and do it gently. He knows so many
ways!"

It was a terrible day. She did not go out of her room again. Her mood
changed a hundred times. The resolve to confess alternated with wild
mockery and laughter, but still returned. She would struggle to persuade
herself that her whole condition was one of foolish exaggeration, of
senseless excitement about nothing--the merest delirium of feminine
fastidiousness; and the next instant would turn cold with horror at a
fresh glimpse of the mere fact. What could the wretched matter be to him
now--or to her? Who was the worse, or had ever been the worse but
herself? And what did it amount to? What claim had any one, what claim
could even a God, if such a being there were, have upon the past which
had gone from her, was no more in any possible sense within her reach
than if it had never been? Was it not as if it had never been? Was the
woman to be hurled--to hurl herself into misery for the fault of the
girl? It was all nonsense--a trifle at worst--a disagreeable trifle, no
doubt, but still a trifle! Only would to God she had died rather--even
although then she would never have known Paul!--Tut! she would never
have thought of it again but for that horrid woman that lived over the
draper's shop! All would have been well if she had but kept from
thinking about it! Nobody would have been a hair the worse then!--But,
poor Paul!--to be married to such a woman as she!

If she were to be so foolish as let him know, how would it strike Paul?
What would he think of it? Ought she not to be sure of that before she
committed herself--before she uttered the irrevocable words? Would he