cied that
no eyes were ever so piteous, no brow ever so laden with the deep
suffering of compassion. But would this punishment reach the heart of
Anton Trendellsohn? Would he care for it? When he should hear that she
had--destroyed her own life because she could not endure the cruelty of
his suspicion, would the tidings make him unhappy? When last they had
been together he had told her, with all that energy which he knew so
well how to put into his words, that her love was necessary to his
happiness. "I will never release you from your promises," he had said,
when she offered to give him back his troth because of the ill-will of
his people. And she still believed him. Yes, he did love her. There was
something of consolation to her in the assurance that the strings of
his heart would be wrung when he should hear of this. If his bosom were
capable of agony, he would be agonised.

It was very dark at this moment, and now was the time for her to climb
upon the stone-work and hide herself behind the drapery of the saint's
statue. More than once, as she had crossed the bridge, she had observed
the spot, and had told herself that if such a deed were to be done,
that would be the place for doing it. She had always been conscious,
since the idea had entered her mind, that she would lack the power to
step boldly up on to the parapet and go over at once, as the bathers do
when they tumble headlong into the stream that has no dangers for them.
She had known that she must crouch, and pause, and think of it, and
look at it, and nerve herself with the memory of her wrongs. Then,
at some moment in which her heart was wrung to the utmost, she would
gradually slacken her hold, and the dark, black, silent river should
take her. She climbed up into the niche, and found that the river was
very far from her, though death was so near to her and the fall would
be so easy. When she became aware that there was nothing between her
and the great void space below her, nothing to guard her, nothing left
to her in all the world to protect her, she retreated, and descended
again to the pavement. And never in her life had she moved with more
care, lest, inadvertently, a foot or a hand might slip, and she might
tumble to her doom against her will.

When she was again on the pathway she remembered her note to Anton--
that note which was already in his hands. What would he think of her if
she were only to threaten the deed, and then not perform it? And w