cunning. She ran to the wardrobe, seized her
long fur coat, slipped her bare feet into her slippers, wound a piece of
lace round her head, and opened the door. All dark and quiet! Holding
her breath, stifling the sound of her feet, she glided down the stairs,
slipped back the chain of the front door, opened it, and fled. Like a
shadow she passed across the grass, out of the garden gate, down the road
under the black dripping trees. The beginning of light was mixing its
grey hue into the darkness; she could just see her feet among the puddles
on the road. She heard the grinding and whirring of a motor-car on its
top gear approaching up the hill, and cowered away against the hedge.
Its light came searching along, picking out with a mysterious momentary
brightness the bushes and tree-trunks, making the wet road gleam. Gyp
saw the chauffeur turn his head back at her, then the car's body passed
up into darkness, and its tail-light was all that was left to see.
Perhaps that car was going to the Red House with her father, the doctor,
somebody, helping to keep her alive! The maniacal hate flared up in her
again; she flew on. The light grew; a man with a dog came out of a gate
she had passed, and called "Hallo!" She did not turn her head. She had
lost her slippers, and ran with bare feet, unconscious of stones, or the
torn-off branches strewing the road, making for the lane that ran right
down to the river, a little to the left of the inn, the lane of
yesterday, where the bank was free.

She turned into the lane; dimly, a hundred or more yards away, she could
see the willows, the width of lighter grey that was the river. The
river--"Away, my rolling river!"--the river--and the happiest hours of
all her life! If he were anywhere, she would find him there, where he
had sung, and lain with his head on her breast, and swum and splashed
about her; where she had dreamed, and seen beauty, and loved him so! She
reached the bank. Cold and grey and silent, swifter than yesterday, the
stream was flowing by, its dim far shore brightening slowly in the first
break of dawn. And Gyp stood motionless, drawing her breath in gasps
after her long run; her knees trembled; gave way. She sat down on the
wet grass, clasping her arms round her drawn-up legs, rocking herself to
and fro, and her loosened hair fell over her face. The blood beat in her
ears; her heart felt suffocated; all her body seemed on fire, yet numb.
She sat, moving h