ch the weakest as
well as the strongest possessed: she could die. Ah, how welcome would
Death be now! Did he ever know or heed the right time to come, without
being sent for--without being compelled? In the meantime her only
anxiety was to get out of the house: away from Paul she would understand
more precisely what she had to do. With the feeling of his angry
presence, she could not think. Yet how she loved him--strong in his
virtue and indignation! She had not yet begun to pity herself, or to
allow to her heart that he was hard upon her.

She was leaving the room when a glitter on her hand caught her eye: the
old diamond disk, which he had bought of her in her trouble, and
restored to her on her wedding-day, was answering the herald of the
sunrise. She drew it off: he must have it again. With it she drew off
also her wedding-ring. Together she laid them on the dressing table,
turned again, and with noiseless foot and desert heart went through the
house, opened the door, and stole into the street. A thin mist was
waiting for her. A lean cat, gray as the mist, stood on the steps of the
door opposite. No other living thing was to be seen. The air was chill.
The autumn rains were at hand. But her heart was the only desolation.

Already she knew where she was going. In the street she turned to the
left.

Shortly before, she had gone with Dorothy, for the first time, to see
the Old House, and there had had rather a narrow escape. Walking down
the garden they came to the pond or small lake, so well known to the
children of Glaston as bottomless. Two stone steps led from the end of
the principal walk down to the water, which was, at the time, nearly
level with the top of the second. On the upper step Juliet was standing,
not without fear, gazing into the gulf, which was yet far deeper than
she imagined, when, without the smallest preindication, the lower step
suddenly sank. Juliet sprung back to the walk, but turned instantly to
look again. She saw the stone sinking, and her eyes opened wider and
wider, as it swelled and thinned to a great, dull, wavering mass, grew
dimmer and dimmer, then melted away and vanished utterly. With "stricken
look," and fright-filled eyes, she turned to Dorothy, who was a little
behind her, and said,

"How will you be able to sleep at night? I should be always fancying
myself sliding down into it through the darkness."

To this place of terror she was now on the road. When consciousness
retu