She threw open the window and looked down into the stream.

For one moment her head swam with the sudden, overwhelming, almost maddening thought that came over her,--the impulse to fling herself headlong into those running waters and dare the worst these dreadful women had threatened her with.

Something she often thought afterwards it was an invisible hand held her back during that brief moment, and the paroxysm--just such a paroxysm as throws many a young girl into the Thames or the Seine--passed away.

She remained looking, in a misty dream, into the water far below.

Its murmur recalled the whisper of the ocean waves.