There it was, black under the darkening sky:  no motion, no sound near.  She set down her basket, and then sank down herself on the grass, trembling.  The pool had its wintry depth now:  by the time it got shallow, as she remembered the pools did at Hayslope, in the summer, no one could find out that it was her body.  But then there was her basket—­she must hide that too.  She must throw it into the water—­make it heavy with stones first, and then throw it in.  She got up to look about for stones, and soon brought five or six, which she laid down beside her basket, and then sat down again.  There was no need to hurry—­there was all the night to drown herself in.  She sat leaning her elbow on the basket.  She was weary, hungry.  There were some buns in her basket—­three, which she had supplied herself with at the place where she ate her dinner.  She took them out now and ate them eagerly, and then sat still again, looking at the pool.  The soothed sensation that came over her from the satisfaction of her hunger, and this fixed dreamy attitude, brought on drowsiness, and presently her head sank down on her knees.  She was fast asleep.

When she awoke it was deep night, and she felt chill.  She was frightened at this darkness—­frightened at the long night before her.  If she could but throw herself into the water!  No, not yet.  She began to walk about that she might get warm again, as if she would have more resolution then.  Oh how long the time was in that darkness!  The bright hearth and the warmth and the voices of home, the secure uprising and lying down, the familiar fields, the familiar people, the Sundays and holidays with their simple joys of dress and feasting—­all the sweets of her young life rushed before her now, and she seemed to be stretching her arms towards them across a great gulf.  She set her teeth when she thought of Arthur.  She cursed him, without knowing what her cursing would do.  She wished he too might know desolation, and cold, and a life of shame that he dared not end by death.

The horror of this cold, and darkness, and solitude—­out of all human reach—­became greater every long minute.  It was almost as if she were dead already, and knew that she was dead, and longed to get back to life again.  But no:  she was alive still; she had not taken the dreadful leap.  She felt a strange contradictory wretchedness and exultation:  wretchedness, that she did not dare to face death; exultation, that she was still in life—­that she might yet know light and warmth again.  She walked backwards and forwards to warm herself, beginning to discern something of the objects around her, as her eyes became accustomed to the night—­the darker line of the hedge, the rapid motion of some living creature—­perhaps a field-mouse—­rushing across the grass.  She no longer felt as if the darkness hedged her in.  She thought she could walk back across the field, and get over the stile; and then, in the very next field, she thought she