away from Windsor—­travel again as she had done the last week, and get among the flat green fields with the high hedges round them, where nobody could see her or know her; and there, perhaps, when there was nothing else she could do, she should get courage to drown herself in some pond like that in the Scantlands.  Yes, she would get away from Windsor as soon as possible:  she didn’t like these people at the inn to know about her, to know that she had come to look for Captain Donnithorne.  She must think of some reason to tell them why she had asked for him.

With this thought she began to put the things back into her pocket, meaning to get up and dress before the landlady came to her.  She had her hand on the red-leather case, when it occurred to her that there might be something in this case which she had forgotten—­something worth selling; for without knowing what she should do with her life, she craved the means of living as long as possible; and when we desire eagerly to find something, we are apt to search for it in hopeless places.  No, there was nothing but common needles and pins, and dried tulip-petals between the paper leaves where she had written down her little money-accounts.  But on one of these leaves there was a name, which, often as she had seen it before, now flashed on Hetty’s mind like a newly discovered message.  The name was—­Dinah Morris, Snowfield.  There was a text above it, written, as well as the name, by Dinah’s own hand with a little pencil, one evening that they were sitting together and Hetty happened to have the red case lying open before her.  Hetty did not read the text now:  she was only arrested by the name.  Now, for the first time, she remembered without indifference the affectionate kindness Dinah had shown her, and those words of Dinah in the bed-chamber—­that Hetty must think of her as a friend in trouble.  Suppose she were to go to Dinah, and ask her to help her?  Dinah did not think about things as other people did.  She was a mystery to Hetty, but Hetty knew she was always kind.  She couldn’t imagine Dinah’s face turning away from her in dark reproof or scorn, Dinah’s voice willingly speaking ill of her, or rejoicing in her misery as a punishment.  Dinah did not seem to belong to that world of Hetty’s, whose glance she dreaded like scorching fire.  But even to her Hetty shrank from beseeching and confession.  She could not prevail on herself to say, “I will go to Dinah”:  she only thought of that as a possible alternative, if she had not courage for death.

The good landlady was amazed when she saw Hetty come downstairs soon after herself, neatly dressed, and looking resolutely self-possessed.  Hetty told her she was quite well this morning.  She had only been very tired and overcome with her journey, for she had come a long way to ask about her brother, who had run away, and they thought he was gone for a soldier, and Captain Donnithorne might know, for he had been very kind to her brother once.  It