her that could be filled with grief was filled with it. Grief
had come suddenly; it was creating a new world for her. It was no longer
a peaceful void; it was a world of wild passions, wild projects, wild
things she would do, wild words she would speak if ever she had the
chance to speak them. She would go in search of him! She would find his
father and mother! She would appeal to Thor! She would discover the girl
with ten or twelve servants who had come between them! She would implore
them all to send him back! She would drag him back! She would hang about
his neck till he swore never again to leave her! If he refused, she
would kill him! If she couldn't kill him, she would kill herself!
Perhaps if she killed herself she would inflict on him the worst
suffering of all!

She thought about that. After all, it was the thing most practical. The
other impulses were not practical. She knew that, of course. She could
humiliate herself to the dust without affecting him. Up to to-day she
had not wanted him to suffer; but now she did. If she killed herself, he
_would_ suffer. However long he lived, or however many servants the
woman he married would be able to keep, his life would be poisoned by
the memory of what he had done to her.

Her imagination reveled in the scenes it was now able to depict. Leaning
back with her head resting against the trunk of the old oak, she closed
her eyes and viewed the dramatic procession of events that might follow
on that morning and haunt Claude Masterman to his grave. She saw herself
leaping from the rock; she saw her body washed ashore, her head and
hands hanging limp, her long, wet hair streaming; she saw her parents
mourning, and Thor remorseful, and Claude absolutely stricken. Her
efforts rested there. Everything was subordinate to the one great fact
that by doing this she could make the sword go through his heart. She
went to the edge of the cliff and peered over. Though it was a sheer
fifty feet, it didn't seem so very far down. The water was blue and
lapping and inviting. It looked as if it would be easy.

She returned to her seat. She knew she was only playing. It relieved the
tumult within her to pretend that she could do as desperately as she
felt. It quieted her. Once she saw that she had it in her power to make
Claude unhappy, something in her spirit was appeased.

She began the little comedy all over again, from the minute when she
started forth from home on the momentous day