But that night I was conscious of no shame, barely of any terror, only of the necessity for haste.

The train on which I was determined to fly was due in a little less than an hour at a station two miles down the road.
"That I should be followed farther than the turbulent stream which crossed the road only a quarter of a mile from the hotel, I did not fear.

For in the hurried note I had left behind me, I had bidden them to look for me there, saying that I had been precipitate in marrying one I did not really love, and, overcome by a sense of my mistake, I was resolved on death.
"A lie! but what was a lie to me then, who saw in my life with this man an amelioration of my present state, but an amelioration only, while in the prospects held out to me by my uncle I foresaw not only release from a hated union, but every delight which my soul had craved since my mother could talk to me of wealth and splendor.
"Behold me, then, stealing down the side of the house in a darkness which during the last few minutes had become impenetrable.

A shadow, where all was shadowy, I made for the woods and succeeded in reaching their shelter just as there rose in the distance behind me that most terrible of all sounds to a woman's ear, a man's loud cry of anguish and rage." She was not looking at that man now, but I was.

As these words left her lips, Mr.Steele's hand crept up and closed over his heart, though his face was like that of a marble image set in immovable lines.