I will look after you. Now go to sleep again."

Without waiting for Jane to think about it, Eleanor slipped out, bonnet
in hand, and went softly down stairs. The old man was already gone to
bed in a little inner chamber; the old mother sat dozing by the fire.
Standing behind her Eleanor put on the bonnet, and then gently opening
the house door, with one step was in the road. A moment stood still;
but the next moment set off with quick, hasty steps.

It was damp and dark; the stars were shining indeed, yet they shed but
a glimmering and doubtful light upon Eleanor's doubtful proceeding. She
knew it was such; her feet trembled and stumbled in her way, though
that was as much with the fever of determination as with the hinderings
of doubt. There was little occasion for bodily fear. People, she knew,
would be going to the preaching, all along the way; she would not be
alone either going or coming. Nevertheless it was dark, and she was
where she had no business to be; and she hurried along rather nervously
till she caught sight of one or two groups before her, evidently bent
for the same place with herself. She slackened her footsteps then, so
as to keep at a proper distance behind them, and felt that for the
present she was secure. Yet, it was a wild, strange walk to Eleanor.
Secure from personal harm she might be, and was, no doubt; but who
could say what moral consequences might follow her proceeding. What if
her mother knew it? what if Mr. Carlisle? Eleanor felt she was doing a
very questionable thing; but the desire to do it on her part amounted
to a necessity. She must hear these words that would be spoken in the
barn to-night. They would be on the subject that of all others
interested her, and spoken by the lips that of all others could alone
speak to the purpose. So Eleanor felt; so was in some measure for her
the truth; and amid all her sense of doubt and danger and inward
trembling, there was a wild thrill of delight at accomplishing her
object. She would hear--yes, she would hear--what Mr. Rhys had to say
to the people that night. Nobody should ever know it; neither he nor
others; but if they _did_, she would run all risks rather than be
balked.

It was a walk never to be forgotten. Alone, though near people that
knew not she was near; in the darkness of night; the stars shewing only
the black forms of trees and hedgerows, and a line of what could not be
called light, where the road ran; keeping in the shadow o