The very means which her friend had taken to induce Mrs. Lane to return to her husband, had driven her farther away.  The hint touching her husband’s legal rights in the child, and his resolution to assert them, filled her with the deepest alarm, and determined her to put it beyond his power, if possible, to deprive her of the only thing in life to which her heart could now cling.  Toward her husband, her feelings were those of an oppressed one for an oppressor.  From the beginning, he had almost suffocated her own life by his pressure upon her freedom of will.  She remembered, with, tears, his tenderness and his love; but soon would come the recollection of his constant interference in matters peculiarly her own; his evident contempt for her intellect; and his final efforts to subdue her rising independence, and make her little less than a domestic slave—­and the fountain of her tears would become dry.  Added to all this, was the fact of his resolution to recover his child by law.  This crushed out all hope from her heart.  He had no affection left for her.  His love had changed to hate.  He had assumed toward her the attitude of a persecutor.  Nothing was now left for her but self-protection.

In leaving the home of her husband, Mrs. Lane had exercised no forethought.  She made no estimate of consequences, and provided for no future contingencies.  She was blind in her faint-heartedness, that was little less than despair.  Any thing was better than to remain in a state of submission, that had become, she felt, intolerable.  Leaving thus, Mrs. Lane had taken with her nothing beyond a few dollars in her purse, and it was only an accident that her purse was in her pocket.  All her own clothes and those of her child, except what they had on, were left behind.

Alarmed at the threat of her husband, Mrs. Lane, a few hours after the conversation with Mrs. Edmondson, in which his views were made known to her, took her child and went away.  In parting with her friend, she left upon her mind the impression that she was going home.  This was very far from her intention.  Her purpose was to leave New York, the city of her residence, as quickly as possible, and flee to some obscure village, where she would remain hidden from her husband.  She had resided, some years before, for a short time in Philadelphia; and thither she resolved to go, and from thence reach some point in the country.  On leaving the house of her friend, Mrs. Lane hurried to the river and took passage in the afternoon line for Philadelphia.

As the cars began their swift movement from Jersey City, a feeling of inexpressible sadness came over her, and she began to realize more distinctly than she had yet done, her desolate, destitute, and helpless condition.  After paying her passage, she had only two dollars left in her purse; and, without money, how was she to gain friends and shelter in a strange city?  To add to her unhappy feelings, her child commenced asking for her father.