hich had made
its last desperate effort to get the upper hand, had broken down. All
she could yield to was the terror that paralyzed thought; all she could
respond to was the force that drew her up the hill with its awful
fascination. "I must do it, I must," were the words with which she met
her own impulse to resist. If her confused thought could have become
explanatory it would have said: "I must get away from the life I've
known, from the care, from the hope, from the love. I must do something
that will make Claude suffer; I must frighten him; I must wound him; I
must strike at the girl who has won him away with her ten or twelve
servants. And there's no way but this."

Even so the way was obscure to her. She was taking it without seeing
whither it was to lead. If one impulse warned her to stop, another
whipped her onward. "I can't stop! I can't stop!" she cried out, when
warning became alarm.

For flight gave impetus to itself. It was like release; it was a kind of
wild glee. She was as a bird whose wings have been bound, and who has
worked them free again. There was a frenzy in sheer speed.

The path was steep, but she was hardly aware of so much as touching it.
Fear behind and anguish within her carried her along. She scarcely knew
that she was running breathlessly, that she panted, that once or twice
she stumbled and fell. Something was beckoning to her from the great,
safe, empty void--something that was nothing, unless it was peace and
sleep--something that had its abode in the free spaces of the wind and
the blue caverns of the sky and the kindly lapping water--something
infinite and eternal and restful, in whose embrace she was due.

At the edge of the wood she had a last terrifying moment. The
raspberry-bine was there, and the great oak with the seat around it, and
the carpet of cinquefoil and wild strawberry. She gave them a quick,
frightened look, like an appeal to impede her. If she was to stop she
must stop now. "But I can't stop," she seemed to fling to them, over her
shoulder, as she kept on to where, beyond the highest tip of greensward,
the blue level of the lake appeared.

The boat with the two fishermen was nearer the shore than when she had
observed it last. "They'll save me! Oh, they'll save me!" she had time
to whisper to herself, at the supreme moment when she left everything
behind.

There followed a space which in Rosie's consciousness was long. She felt
that she was leaping, flying, o