Bettina came to the door, and was sent away with thanks.  Then I began to dress myself with very trembling hands.  This was new work to me, this horrible deception.  But all remorse for that, was swallowed up in the one engrossing thought and desire which had usurped my soul for the days just passed.

It was a full half-hour before I was ready, my hands shook so unaccountably, and I could scarcely find the things I wanted to put on.  When I went to the door I could hardly turn the key, I felt so weak, and I stood in the passage many minutes before I dared go on.  If any one had appeared or spoken to me, I am quite sure I should have fainted, my nerves were in such a shaken state.

CHAPTER XVI.

AUGUST THIRTIETH.

     Were Death so unlike Sleep,
     Caught this way?  Death’s to fear from flame, or steel,
     Or poison doubtless; but from water—­feel!

     Robert Browning.

I met no one in the hall or on the piazza.  The house was silent and deserted:  one of the maids was closing the parlor windows.  She did not look at me with any surprise, for she had not probably heard that I was ill.

Once in the open air I felt stronger.  I took the river-path, and walked quickly, feeling freed from a nightmare:  and my mind was filled with one thought.  “In a few moments I shall be beside him, I shall make him look at me, he cannot help but touch my hand.”  I did not think of past or future, only of the greedy, passionate present.  My infatuation was at its height.  I cannot imagine a passion more absorbing, more unresisted, and more dangerous.  I passed quickly through the garden without even noticing the flowers that brushed against my dress.

As I reached the grove I thought for one instant of the morning that he had met me here, just where the paths intersected.  At that moment I heard a step; and full of that hope, with a quick thrill, I glanced in the direction of the sound.  There, not ten yards from me, coming from the opposite direction, was Richard.  I felt a shock of disappointment, then fear, then anger.  What right had he to dog me so?  He looked at me without surprise, but as if his heart was full of bitterness and sorrow.  He approached, and turned as if to walk with me.

“I want to be alone,” I said angrily, moving away from him.

“No, Pauline,” he answered with a sigh, as he turned from me, “you do not want to be alone.”

Full of shame and anger, and jarred with the shock and fear, I went on more slowly.  The wood was so silent—­the river through the trees lay so still and leaden.  If it had not been for the fire burning in my heart, I could have thought the world was dead.

There was not a sound but my own steps; should I soon meet him, would he be sitting in his old seat by the boat-house door, or would he be wandering along the dead, still river-bank?  What should I say to him?  O! he would speak.  If he saw me he would have to speak.