y it was in its cool evening
blue! What a god-like joy in the happy multitude of waves leaping up to
the light of heaven!

She stayed out until the night fell and the stars appeared. The night
steadied her.

By slow degrees her mind recovered its balance and she looked her
position unflinchingly in the face. The vain hope that accident might
defeat the very end for which, of her own free-will, she had ceaselessly
plotted and toiled, vanished and left her; self-dissipated in its own
weakness. She knew the true alternative, and faced it. On one side was
the revolting ordeal of the marriage; on the other, the abandonment
of her purpose. Was it too late to choose between the sacrifice of the
purpose and the sacrifice of herself? Yes! too late. The backward path
had closed behind her. Time that no wish could change, Time that no
prayers could recall, had made her purpose a part of herself: once she
had governed it; now it governed her. The more she shrank, the harder
she struggled, the more mercilessly it drove her on. No other feeling
in her was strong enough to master it--not even the horror that was
maddening her--the horror of her marriage.

Toward nine o'clock she went back to the house.

"Walking again!" said Mrs. Wragge, meeting her at the door. "Come in and
sit down, my dear. How tired you must be!"

Magdalen smiled, and patted Mrs. Wragge kindly on the shoulder.

"You forget how strong I am," she said. "Nothing hurts me."

She lit her candle and went upstairs again into her room. As she
returned to the old place by her toilet-table, the vain hope in the
three days of delay, the vain hope of deliverance by accident, came back
to her--this time in a form more tangible than the form which it had
hitherto worn.

"Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Something may happen to him; something may
happen to me. Something serious; something fatal. One of us may die."

A sudden change came over her face. She shivered, though there was no
cold in the air. She started, though there was no noise to alarm her.

"One of us may die. I may be the one."

She fell into deep thought, roused herself after a while, and, opening
the door, called to Mrs. Wragge to come and speak to her.

"You were right in thinking I should fatigue myself," she said. "My walk
has been a little too much for me. I feel tired, and I am going to bed.
Good-night." She kissed Mrs. Wragge and softly closed the door again.

After a few turns backward and forward