to the boat, but she exclaimed:

"No, you stay here, and wait. I can row a great deal quicker with only
one in the boat. Here, dear," she said, taking off her watch, and
hanging it round his neck, "you can have this to keep you from being
lonely, and you can tell by this how long it will be before I get back.
Watch the hands, and that will make the time seem shorter, they go so
fast. It will take me about half an hour; that will be--let me
see--yes--just five o'clock. There is a good long daylight after that;"
and, kissing him, she jumped into the boat and pushed off. What a moment
it was. Her arms seemed to be paralyzed; but, summoning all her will,
she drove the boat resolutely forward, and looked no more back at Raby.
As soon as she had gained the other side of the island, where she was
concealed from Raby's sight by the trees, she pulled out vigorously for
the Springton shore. When she reached it, she drew the boat up
cautiously on the beach, fastened it, and hid herself among the trees.
Her plan was to wait there until dusk, then push the boat adrift in the
lake, and go out herself adrift into the world. She dared not set out on
her walk to Fairfield until it was dark; she knew, moreover, that the
northern train did not pass until nearly midnight. These hours that
Hetty spent crouched under the hemlock-trees on the shore of the lake
were harder than any which she lived through afterward. She kept her
eyes fixed on the opposite shore, on the spot where she knew the patient
child was waiting for her. She pictured him walking back and forth,
trying by childish devices to while away the time. As the sun sank low
she imagined his first anxious look,--his alarm,--till it seemed
impossible for her to bear the thoughts her imagination called up. He
would wait, she thought, about one hour past the time that she had set
for her return: possibly, for he was a brave child, he might wait until
it began to grow dark; he would think that she was searching for the
shawl. She hoped that any other explanation of her absence would not
occur to him until the very last. As the twilight deepened into dusk,
the mysterious night sounds began to come up from the woods; strange
bird notes, stealthy steps of tiny creatures. Hetty's nerves thrilled
with the awful loneliness: she could bear it no longer; she began to
walk up and down the beach; the sound of her footsteps drowned many of
the mysterious noises, and made her feel less alone. At la