Why stop her?
She was alone in a maze of narrow, silent streets that ended always in a high blank wall.

It seemed impossible to get away from this blank wall.
Whatever way she turned she was always coming back to it.
What was she to do?
Drag the woman back to life against her will--lead her back to him to be a chain about his feet until the end?
Then leave him to fight the battle alone?
And herself?
All her world had been watching and would know.

She had counted her chickens before they were dead.

She had set her cap at the man, reckoning him already widowed; and his wife had come to life and snatched it from her head.

She could hear the laughter--the half amused, half contemptuous pity for her "rotten bad luck." She would be their standing jest, till she was forgotten.
What would life leave to her?
A lonely lodging and a pot of ink that she would come to hate the smell of.