I attempted to raise her face from the turf, but it fell back like lead from my hands; the cheek which rested for a moment on my arm was cold as snow. There was no life perceptible; I looked around for water. A hundred feet below me it was rushing forward in abundance, but that was unattainable. The house was some distance, but there alone could I hope for succor.
I detested that woman in my soul; but some pure womanly feeling impelled me to keep her terrible condition a secret. I could not find it in my heart to expose her humiliation. So entering the hall unseen, I seized a pitcher of water that stood on the marble console and hurried back, carrying it so unsteadily that the ice-drops rained over my hands at every step. When I reached the rock, breathless with haste, the woman was gone, and but for the crushed grass, and a handful of moss torn up by the roots, there remained no proof of the scene I had just witnessed.
Where had she gone? Not to the house. I must have seen her had she taken that direction. Surely she had not followed Lawrence! I stepped to the rock, which gave me a view of the footpath and the precipitous bank. She was not in the woods, nor on the line of the ridge. Had she thrown herself down the bank, and so perished in the river below?
I seized the ash-tree, and, supporting myself by it, leaned over, searching the depths with a trembling dread of what I might find.
Half-way down the descent, I saw the gorgeous colors of a shawl shrouding some object crouched upon a point of rock that jutted out from the bank, and fairly overhung the black waters fifty feet below. In my fright, the ash-tree escaped my hold, and, starting back with a sharp recoil, made a great rustling among the leaves.
The woman sprang up, lifted her white face toward me, and for a moment stood poised over the water, with her garments fluttering in the wind so violently, that their very motion threatened to destroy her balance.
I threw out my arms, pleading with her to come back; but she sprang forward into a heavy covert of pine-boughs that swept the descent, and disappeared.
I waited some minutes, hoping that she would appear again; but everything was still; and after lingering about the rock some time, I returned to the house.
When I entered the hall, Mrs. Dennison was leaning over the balustrade of the square balcony, gazing down upon the scenery of the valley, to all appearance tranquil as a child.
She looked around with a furtive movement of the head as I set the pitcher upon the console, and then I saw that her face was still deathly pale. I said nothing to any one of what I had seen; it could have availed little; my report would only have met with denial and discredence. I felt sure of this and went to my room, there most earnestly praying God to direct me how to act.