It opens abruptly:
"I killed him. I am all that I said I was, and you can never again
give me a thought save in the way of cursing and to bewail the day
I came into your life. But you can not hate me more than I hate
myself, my wicked self, who, seeing an obstacle in the way to
happiness, stamped it out of existence, and so forfeited all right
to happiness forever.
"It was so easy! Had it been a hard thing to do; had it been
necessary to lay hand on knife or lift a pistol, I might have
realized the act and paused. But just a little spring which a
child's hand could manage - Who, feeling for it, could help pressing
it, if only to see -
"I was always a reckless girl, mad for pleasure and without any
thought of consequences. When school bored me, I took all my books
out of my desk, called upon my mates to do the same, and, stacking
them up into a sort of rostrum in a field where we played, first
delivered an oration from them in which reverence for my teachers
had small part, then tore them into pieces and burned them in full
sight of my admiring school-fellows. I was dismissed, but not with
disgrace. Teachers and scholars bewailed my departure, not because
they liked me, or because of any good they had found in me, but
because my money had thrown luster on them and on the whole
establishment.
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