Basil

Chapter 2

Darkly and wearily the days of my recovery went on. After that first

outburst of sorrow on the evening when I recognised my sister, and

murmured her name as she sat by my side, there sank over all my

faculties a dull, heavy trance of mental pain.

I dare not describe what remembrances of the guilty woman who had

deceived and ruined me, now gnawed unceasingly and poisonously at my

heart. My bodily strength feebly revived; but my mental energies never

showed a sign of recovering with them. My father's considerate

forbearance, Clara's sorrowful reserve in touching on the subject of

my long illness, or of the wild words which had escaped me in my

delirium, mutely and gently warned me that the time was come when I

owed the tardy atonement of confession to the family that I had

disgra