She threw herself on her bed and wept in the agony of boredom. Edward once found her thus, and asked what was the matter. “Oh, my head aches, so that I feel I could kill myself.” He sent for Ramsay, but Bertha knew the doctor’s remedies were absurd and useless. She imagined that there was no remedy for her ill--not even time--no remedy but death. She knew the terrible distress of waking in the morning with the thought that still another day must be gone through; she knew the relief of bed-time with the thought that she would enjoy a few hours of unconsciousness. She was racked with the imagination of the future’s frightful monotony: night would follow day, and day would follow night, the months passing one by one and the years slowly, slowly. They say that life is short. To those who look back perhaps it is; but to those who look forward it is long, horribly long--endless. Sometimes Bertha felt it impossible to endure. She prayed that she might fall asleep at night and never awake. How happy must be the lives of those who can look forward to eternity! To Bertha the idea was merely ghastly; she desired nothing but the long rest, the rest of an endless sleep, the dissolution into nothing. Once in desperation she wished to kill herself, but was afraid. People say that suicide requires no courage. Fools! They cannot realise the horror of the needful preparation, the anticipation of the pain, the terrible fear that one may regret when it is too late, when life is ebbing away. And there is the dread of the unknown. And there is the dread of hell-fire--absurd and revolting, yet so engrained that no effort is able entirely to destroy it. Notwithstanding reason and argument there is still the numbing fear that the ghastly fables of our childhood may after all be true, the fear of a jealous God who will doom His wretched creatures to unending torture. Chapter XXXIV But if the human soul, or the heart, or the mind--call it what you will--is an instrument upon which countless melodies may be played, it is capable of responding for very long to no single one. Time dulls the most exquisite emotions, softens the most heartrending grief. The story is old of the philosopher who sought to console a woman in distress by the account of tribulations akin to hers, and upon losing his only son was sent by her a list of all kings similarly bereaved. He read it, acknowledged its correctness, but wept none the less. Three months later the philosopher and the lady were surprised to find one another quite gay, and erected a fine monument to Time with the inscription: _A celui qui console_. When Bertha vowed that life had lost all savour, that her ennui was unending, she exaggerated as usual, and almost grew angry on discovering that existence could be more supportable than she supposed.