“Iss, indeed, miss; the carriage drove from the door as I came upstairs.  You’ll see it now on the Yspytty road, if you’ll please to come to the window of No. 24.”

Ruth started up and followed the chambermaid.  Ay, there it was, slowly winding up the steep, white road, on which it seemed to move at a snail’s pace.

She might overtake him—­she might—­she might speak one farewell word to him, print his face on her heart with a last look—­nay, when he saw her he might retract, and not utterly, for ever, leave her.  Thus she thought; and she flew back to her room, and snatching up her bonnet, ran, tying the strings with her trembling hands as she went down the stairs, out at the nearest door, little heeding the angry words of Mrs. Morgan; for the hostess, more irritated at Mrs. Bellingham’s severe upbraiding at parting, than mollified by her ample payment, was offended by the circumstance of Ruth, in her wild haste, passing through the prohibited front door.

But Ruth was away before Mrs. Morgan had finished her speech, out and away, scudding along the road, thought-lost in the breathless rapidity of her motion.  Though her heart and head beat almost to bursting, what did it signify if she could but overtake the carriage?  It was a nightmare, constantly evading the most passionate wishes and endeavours, and constantly gaining ground.  Every time it was visible it was in fact more distant, but Ruth would not believe it.  If she could but gain the summit of that weary everlasting hill, she believed that she could run again, and would soon be nigh upon the carriage.  As she ran she prayed with wild eagerness; she prayed that she might see his face once more, even if she died on the spot before him.  It was one of those prayers which God is too merciful to grant; but, despairing and wild as it was, Ruth put her soul into it, and prayed it again, and yet again.

Wave above wave of the ever-rising hills were gained, were crossed, and at last Ruth struggled up to the very top and stood on the bare table of moor, brown and purple, stretching far away till it was lost in the haze of the summer afternoon; the white road was all flat before her, but the carriage she sought, and the figure she sought, had disappeared.  There was no human being there; a few wild, black-faced mountain sheep, quietly grazing near the road as if it were long since they had been disturbed, by the passing of any vehicle, was all the life she saw on the bleak moorland.

She threw herself down on the ling by the side of the road, in despair.  Her only hope was to die, and she believed she was dying.  She could not think; she could believe anything.  Surely life was a horrible dream, and God would mercifully awaken her from it?  She had no penitence, no consciousness of error or offence no knowledge of any one circumstance but that he was gone.  Yet afterwards—­long afterwards—­she remembered the exact motion of a bright green beetle busily meandering among the