a horrible man ... he threw me down and ill-treated me; my frock is ruined, utterly ruined, what a state it is in!  I had a narrow escape of being murdered.  I will tell them that ... that will explain ...  I had a narrow escape of being murdered.”  But presently she grew conscious that these thoughts were fictitious thoughts, and that there was a thought, a real thought, lying in the background of her mind, which she dared not face, which she could not think of, for she did not think as she desired to; her thoughts came and went at their own wild will, they flitted lightly, touching with their wings but ever avoiding this deep and formless thought which lay in darkness, almost undiscoverable, like a monster in a nightmare.

She rose to her feet, she staggered, her sight seemed to fail her.  There was a darkness in the summer evening which she could not account for; the ground seemed to slide beneath her feet, the landscape seemed to be in motion and to be rolling in great waves towards the sea.  Would it precipitate itself into the sea, and would she be engulphed in the universal ruin?  O! the sea, how implacably serene, how remorselessly beautiful; green along the shore, purple along the horizon!  But the land was rolling to it.  By Lancing College it broke seaward in a soft lapsing tide, in front of her it rose in angry billows; and Leywood hill, green, and grand, and voluted, stood up a great green wave against the waveless sea.

“What a horrible man ... he attacked me, ill-treated me ... what for?” Her thoughts turned aside.  “He should be put in prison....  If father knew it, or John knew it, he would be put in prison, and for a very long time....  Why did he attack me?...  Perhaps to rob me; yes, to rob me, of course to rob me.”  The evening seemed to brighten, the tumultuous landscape to grow still, To rob her, and of what?... of her watch; where was it?  It was gone.  The happiness of a dying saint when he opens arms to heaven descended upon her.  The watch was gone ... but, had she lost it?  Should she go back and see if she could find it?  Oh! impossible; see the place again—­impossible! search among the gorse—­impossible!  Horror!  She would die.  O to die on the lonely hills, to lie stark and cold beneath the stars!  But no, she would not be found upon these hills.  She would die and be seen no more.  O to die, to sink in that beautiful sea, so still, so calm, so calm—­why would it not take her to its bosom and hide her away?  She would go to it, but she could not get to it; there were thousands of men between her and it....  An icy shiver passed through her.

Then as her thoughts broke away, she thought of how she had escaped being murdered.  How thankful she ought to be—­but somehow she is not thankful.  And she was above all things conscious of a horror of returning, of returning to where she would see men and women’s faces ... men’s faces.  And now with her eyes fixed on the world that awaited her, she stood on the hillside.