ive comfort and fortitude to
Janet, than the withered ivy-covered trunk can bear up its strong,
full-boughed offspring crashing down under an Alpine storm. Janet felt
she was alone: no human soul had measured her anguish, had understood her
self-despair, had entered into her sorrows and her sins with that
deep-sighted sympathy which is wiser than all blame, more potent than all
reproof--such sympathy as had swelled her own heart for many a sufferer.
And if there was any Divine Pity, she could not feel it; it kept aloof
from her, it poured no balm into her wounds, it stretched out no hand to
bear up her weak resolve, to fortify her fainting courage.

Now, in her utmost loneliness, she shed no tear: she sat staring fixedly
into the darkness, while inwardly she gazed at her own past, almost
losing the sense that it was her own, or that she was anything more than
a spectator at a strange and dreadful play.

The loud sound of the church clock, striking one, startled her. She had
not been there more than half an hour, then? And it seemed to her as if
she had been there half the night. She was getting benumbed with cold.
With that strong instinctive dread of pain and death which had made her
recoil from suicide, she started up, and the disagreeable sensation of
resting on her benumbed feet helped to recall her completely to the sense
of the present. The wind was beginning to make rents in the clouds, and
there came every now and then a dim light of stars that frightened her
more than the darkness; it was like a cruel finger pointing her out in
her wretchedness and humiliation; it made her shudder at the thought of
the morning twilight. What could she do? Not go to her mother--not rouse
her in the dead of night to tell her this. Her mother would think she was
a spectre; it would be enough to kill her with horror. And the way there
was so long ... if she should meet some one ... yet she must seek some
shelter, somewhere to hide herself. Five doors off there was Mrs.
Pettifer's; that kind woman would take her in. It was of no use now to be
proud and mind about the world's knowing: she had nothing to wish for,
nothing to care about; only she could not help shuddering at the thought
of braving the morning light, there in the street--she was frightened at
the thought of spending long hours in the cold. Life might mean anguish,
might mean despair; but oh, she must clutch it, though with bleeding
fingers; her feet must cling to the fi