"Stay!" broke from me, I knew not why nor how; but with the word, my head swam; my limbs failed me; there was a chair by me, I sank down upon it. Cornelius turned very pale, dropped my hands, and walked away without a word. Kate came to me. "Daisy," she said, taking my hand in her own, "what is it? Are you faint? Have this," she added, handing me the glass of wine which, at once, her brother had poured out. "No," I replied, "water." She gave me some. I drank it off, but it did not calm the fever which she took for faintness. I clasped my brow between my hands, to compose and concentrate thought; but my whole being--my mind, faculties, soul, body, and heart, were in tumult and insurrection. I could hear, see, feel--know nothing of that inward world of which I called myself mistress. I rose, terrified at the sudden storm which had broken on my long peace. "Daisy, do not look so wild!" said Kate; and taking me in her arms, she wanted to make me sit down again; but I broke from her. I passed by her brother without giving him a look, ran up to my own room, and locked myself in like one pursued. CHAPTER XVIII. A faint streak of grey was breaking in the east, through the low and heavy clouds of night. I went up to the window, opened it, and kneeling down by it, I looked at that still dark sky, and surrendered myself to the swift current that was bearing me away. There is a rapture in strong emotions that has subdued the strongest; a perilous charm to which the wisest have yielded. What the storm is to our senses--something that raises, appals and lifts up our very being by its sublimity and terror--the strife of the passions is to the soul. They are her elements, from whose conflicts and electric shocks she derives her strength, her greatness, the knowledge that she is. And for this, though they so often blight her fairest hopes, she loves them. It is hard, indeed, to be ever striving against those rebellious servants--to feel torn asunder in the struggle; but sweeter is that bitter contest than a long, lifeless peace. The danger lies not so much in the chance of final subjection, as in that of learning to love the strife too well. More perilous than the sweetest music is its tumult; more endless than are all the delights of the senses, and far more intoxicating is its infinite variety. The soul, in her most blissful repose, has nothing to equal the burning charm of her delirium. My youth had been calm as an ice-bound sea, over which sweep breezes sweet though chill, but that knows neither the storm nor the sunshine of the ardent south. And now the storm had suddenly wakened, and from northern winter, I passed to the glowing tropics. I thought not of love or passion, of bliss or torment; I felt like one seized by foaming rapids, and swept far beyond human ken, with the sound of the rushing torrent ever in my ears. I yielded to a force that would not be resisted.