Sleep had only closed her eyes on the future, to
open them on the past.
She went down again into the parlor, eager to talk--no matter how idly,
no matter on what trifles. The room was empty. Perhaps Mrs. Wragge had
gone to her work--perhaps she was too tired to talk. Magdalen took her
hat from the table and went out. The sea that she had shrunk from, a few
hours since, looked friendly now. How lovely it was in its cool evening
blue! What a god-like joy in the happy multitude of waves leaping up to
the light of heaven!
She stayed out until the night fell and the stars appeared. The night
steadied her.
By slow degrees her mind recovered its balance and she looked her
position unflinchingly in the face. The vain hope that accident might
defeat the very end for which, of her own free-will, she had ceaselessly
plotted and toiled, vanished and left her; self-dissipated in its own
weakness. She knew the true alternative, and faced it. On one side was
the revolting ordeal of the marriage; on the other, the abandonment
of her purpose. Was it too late to choose between the sacrifice of the
purpose and the sacrifice of herself? Yes! too late. The backward path
had closed behind her.
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