It was one of those prayers which God is too merciful to grant; but despairing and wild as it was, Ruth put her soul into it, and prayed it again, and yet again.
Wave above wave of the ever-rising hills were gained, were crossed, and at last Ruth struggled up to the very top and stood on the bare table of moor, brown and purple, stretching far away till it was lost in the haze of the summer afternoon; and the white road was all flat before her, but the carriage she sought and the figure she sought had disappeared.

There was no human being there; a few wild, black-faced mountain sheep quietly grazing near the road, as if it were long since they had been disturbed by the passing of any vehicle, was all the life she saw on the bleak moorland.
She threw herself down on the ling by the side of the road in despair.

Her only hope was to die, and she believed she was dying.
She could not think; she could believe anything.

Surely life was a horrible dream, and God would mercifully awaken her from it.

She had no penitence, no consciousness of error or offence; no knowledge of any one circumstance but that he was gone.