Page:Des Grieux, The Prelude to Teleny.djvu/64

 means of escape. The fire of Gehenna could surely not be worse than the pangs she was suffering.

Yes, she would punish herself, and thereby partly atone for the deed she had done.

She lifted her stiffened fingers up to her throat and tried to strangle herself.

When almost choking, her strength failed, her fingers relaxed their grasp. The image of the everlasting Mower appeared before her eyes, and behind the green gaunt image of death, she saw the dull red lambent restless flames of hell. The bottomless pit of Abaddon and all its horrors stared her in the face. It was not the lurid light of purgatory, where hope still remains, but the dark despair of the deep Malebolgian pool.

She shuddered with indescribable horror and clapped her hands upon her eyes not to see that terrible sight any more.

No, she could not hurl herself into eternal damnation, she could not bring herself to meet the wrath of God, to be tortured for ever and ever in throes of fire and brimstone, among loathsome reptiles, to be scourged