Alas! alas!  I thought I had only to resolve.  I thought the struggle would be but once.  How little I knew of the daily, almost hourly, changes of feeling,—­of the despondency, the despair, that would come, I knew not why, directly upon my most earnest resolves, my hardest struggles,—­of the weakness that would make me at times give up all struggling as useless,—­of the mad hope that would sometimes arise that something, some outward change, I did not dare to say what, would bring me some relief!

I had at least the courage to keep away from the sight of all that was so miserable to me.  I did not see George Hammond for weeks, and he—­ah! there was the bitterness—­he did not miss me.

And so the weary days went on.  It is wonderful what endurance there is in a young heart,—­for how long a time it can beat off suffering all day by unceasing labor, and lie awake all night with that same suffering for a bedfellow, and still make no sign that a careless eye can see I look at that time now with wonder.  How did I bear that constant occupation by day, alternated only with those sleepless nights, without breaking down entirely?  The crisis came at last,—­a sort of stupor, a cessation of suffering indeed, but a cessation, too, of all feeling.  I was frightened at myself.  Alas!  I had no one to be frightened for me.  Could it be that I was going to lose my senses?  But no, I passed through that too, and then came a more natural state of mind than any I had known since the blow fell.

My suffering self seemed like something apart from me, which I could pity and help, could counsel and act for, and this one thing became clear to me.  Some change of scene was necessary to me.  I could never go on so; it was idle to attempt it.  I could not live any longer face to face with my grief.  There was the whole world before me.  Was it not possible to go out into it?  I had health, strength, ability, I was sure of it.  How often before had I dreamed over the seeking my fortune in that world which looked to me then so full of excitement!  Nothing had held me back then but the clinging to home-pleasures, to home-enjoyments, to home-comforts, poor as they were,—­nothing but the sense of safety, of protection.  What were these to me now?  I cared nothing for them.  I only asked to be away from all that reminded me of my suffering, to be so forced to struggle with external difficulties as to have no thought for myself.  I did not want to love anybody; I would rather have nobody care for me.  I would go.  The only question was how.

A few days and nights of thought solved the problem for me, and, once roused to action, I took my steps rapidly and well.  The first thing necessary was money, money enough to take me away, and to support me until I could find employment; and the means of attaining it were within my reach.  I owned a watch that had been my mother’s, a pretty trinket, though somewhat old-fashioned, and which had often excited the envy of the young wife of one of the head miners.  I knew that her husband was flush of money just then, for he had drawn his wages only the week before,—­and I knew, too, that he would give me a good price for my watch, were it only to gratify the bride to whom he had as yet denied nothing.