I opened the door with some slight trepidation, but had no need for fear.

She was lying prostrate upon the floor, as I saw on coming near, in a dead faint.

She had evidently fallen so suddenly and with such force as to have hurt herself; her head had struck against an ornament of the bookcase, near which she had been standing; and a little stream of blood was trickling from her temple.

It made me sick to behold it.

As I looked at her where she lay, I could not but pity her a little, and think what a merciful fate it would be for her, and such as she, if they could all die,--and so put an end to what, I presume, though I never before thought of it, is really a very hard existence.
"It was no time, however, to sentimentalize.