ary,
and I could reach it, riding slowly, in half an hour. On the instant
and without more delay I determined on this course. I would return,
and, committing myself to the fellow's good offices, bid him deny me to
others, and especially to my friends--should they seek me.

Aware that I bad no time to lose if I would put this plan into execution
before the pains returned to sap my courage, I drew bridle at once,
and muttered some excuse to madame; if I remember rightly, that I had
dropped my gauntlet. Whatever the pretext--and my dread was great lest
she should observe any strangeness in my manner--it passed with her; by
reason, chiefly, I think, of the grief which monopolised her. She let me
go, and before anyone else could mark or miss me I was a hundred yards
away on the back-track, and already sheltered from observation by a turn
in the road.

The excitement of my evasion supported me for a while after leaving her;
and then for another while, a paroxysm of pain deprived me of the power
of thought. But when this last was over, leaving me weak and shaken, yet
clear in my mind, the most miserable sadness and depression that can be
conceived came upon me; and, accompanying me through the wood, filled
its avenues (which doubtless were fair enough to others' eyes) with the
blackness of despair. I saw but the charnel-house, and that everywhere.
It was not only that the horrors of the first discovery returned upon me
and almost unmanned me; nor only that regrets and memories, pictures of
the past and plans for the future, crowded thick upon my mind, so that
I could have wept at the thought of all ending here. But in my weakness
mademoiselle's face shone where the wood was darkest, and, tempting and
provoking me to return--were it only to tell her that, grim and dull as
I seemed, I loved her--tried me with a subtle temptation almost beyond
my strength to resist. All that was mean in me rose in arms, all that
was selfish clamoured to know why I must die in the ditch while others
rode in the sunshine; why I must go to the pit, while others loved and
lived!

And so hard was I pressed that I think I should have given way had the
ride been longer or my horse less smooth and nimble. But in the midst of
my misery, which bodily pain was beginning to augment to such a degree
that I could scarcely see, and had to ride gripping the saddle with both
hands, I reached the mill. My horse stopped of its own accord. The man
we had seen bef