She would go
back to Deemouth, and again seek work at the paper-mills!
CHAPTER XXIV
She woke in the first of the gray dawn, while the house was in utter
stillness, and rising at once, rose and dressed herself with soundless
haste. It was hard indeed to go and leave James thus in danger, but she had
no choice! She held her breath and listened, but all was still. She opened
her door softly; not a sound reached her ear as she crept down the stair.
She had neither to unlock nor unbolt the door to leave the house, for it
was never made fast. A dread sense of the old wandering desolation came
back upon her as she stepped across the threshold, and now she had no baby
to comfort her! She was leaving a mouldy peace and a withered love behind
her, and had once more to encounter the rough coarse world! She feared the
moor she had to cross, and the old dreams she must there encounter; and as
she held on her way through them, she felt, in her new loneliness, and the
slow-breaking dawn, as if she were lying again in her trance, partly
conscious, but quite unable to move, thinking she was dead, and waiting to
be buried.
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