The household was, to all appearance, asleep at the usual early hour.  When all seemed quiet, Myrtle lighted her lamp, stood before her mirror, and untied the string that bound her long and beautiful dark hair, which fell in its abundance over her shoulders and below her girdle.

She lifted its heavy masses with one hand, and severed it with a strong pair of scissors, with remorseless exaction of every wandering curl, until she stood so changed by the loss of that outward glory of her womanhood, that she felt as if she had lost herself and found a brother she had never seen before.

“Good-by, Myrtle!” she said, and, opening her window very gently, she flung the shining tresses upon the running water, and watched them for a few moments as they floated down the stream.  Then she dressed herself in the character of her imaginary brother, took up the carpet-bag in which she had placed what she chose to carry with her, stole softly down-stairs, and let herself out of a window on the lower floor, shutting it very carefully so as to be sure that nobody should be disturbed.

She glided along, looking all about her, fearing she might be seen by some curious wanderer, and reached the cove where the boat she had concealed was lying.  She got into it, and, taking the rude oars, pulled herself into the middle of the swollen stream.  Her heart beat so that it seemed to her as if she could hear it between the strokes of the oar.  The lights were not all out in the village, and she trembled lest she should see the figure of some watcher looking from the windows in sight of which she would have to pass, and that a glimpse of this boat stealing along at so late an hour might give the clue to the secret of her disappearance, with which the whole region was to be busied in the course of the next day.

Presently she came abreast of The Poplars.  The house lay so still, so peaceful,—­it would wake to such dismay!  The boat slid along beneath her own overhanging chamber.

“No song to-morrow from the Fire-hang-bird’s Nest!” she said.  So she floated by the slumbering village, the flow of the river carrying her steadily on, and the careful strokes of the oars adding swiftness to her flight.

At last she came to the “Broad Meadows,” and knew that she was alone, and felt confident that she had got away unseen.  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to point out which way she had gone.  Her boat came from nobody knew where, her disguise had been got together at different times in such a manner as to lead to no suspicion, and not a human being ever had the slightest hint that she had planned and meant to carry out the enterprise which she had now so fortunately begun.

Not till the last straggling house had been long past, not till the meadows were stretched out behind her as well as before her, spreading far off into the distance on each side, did she give way to the sense of wild exultation which was coming fast over her.  But then, at last, she drew a long, long breath, and, standing up in the boat, looked all around her.  The stars were shining over her head and deep down beneath her.  The cool wind came fresh upon her cheek over the long grassy reaches.  No living thing moved in all the wide level circle which lay about her.  She had passed the Red Sea, and was alone in the Desert.