She read it over several times before sealing it. When she addressed the envelope, it seemed to her that she was writing his name in his death-warrant.
"And, yet, what else can I do?" she sobbed. "What I have written sounds selfish, but it may make him think that I am not aware of his love for me, and that I am struggling against self- mortification. That will be best."
All through the night she walked up and down her chamber; and at the first sign of approaching daylight she went quietly out of the house, and walked in the direction of Bilkins's deserted shaft. No one was stirring ; the whole place was in slumber: she got out of the little town unperceived, and wondered if she would ever sleep again.
Reaching the shaft, she passed by it and hurried on along the same path which she and Walter had followed, a week after her birthday. How far back in the past that day seemed! She felt as if ages had gone by since then.
Higher and higher she went up into the mountain, until she reached the point where she and Walter had turned to go back home again. Then she seated herself on a boulder, and thought over the whole of her life. It had always been so happy and careless until now; and now there was nothing in it but despair and desolation. She had but one thing to console her, and that was her conviction that she was pleasing Dubb. Suddenly a possibility flashed upon her that had heretofore been unconsidered. What if she had misunderstood Dubb? What if he was indifferent as to whom she married, so long as she married well? It seemed reasonable and probable: he had never insisted on her doing anything, and why had she supposed that he cared about this on his own account? She would go straight back and tell him the truth, at all hazards. She would not marry Don Altana: Dubb should explain to him that her acceptance of the honor which he offered her had been made without consideration, and that it was a pledge which she could not keep without injustice to Don Altana, to Walter Morris, and to herself. The Don might despise her for her indecision, and Dubb might be hurt by her seeming fickleness; but neither would be so bad as her marrying Don Altana under such circumstances; nothing else could be so bad as that. Five minutes before, she had been firm in one purpose; now she was firm in another. Then she had been sure that it was her duty to marry the Don; now she was sure that it was her duty to break the engagement.
With a cry of joy, she sprang up and began running down the mountain, so as to get home before the departure of Dubb and Don Altana. Part of the way her path lay along the steep side of a ravine, and once, in her haste, she came too near the edge, and went crashing down among the rocks below. Her head was dashed against one of them, and there she lay, senseless and bleeding.
When she regained consciousness, she found herself in the arms of Walter Morris. He, too, had passed a restless night, and had been walking to quiet himself. Chance had brought him along the same pathway, almost immediately after her fall. He had given her brandy,
