It was as if she felt a presentiment that she was bidding it good-by forever, and, taking it to her breast once more, she rocked herself to and fro, sobbing over it silently, as she listened to the voices in the next room.
“He told Bessie not to let me go out again, I’m sure,” she thought to herself; and, feeling that if she meant to go she must go at once, she unwillingly laid down the child after a passionate embrace, and went softly out into the dark night.
She was very weak, and panted with the exertion as she reached the top of the ascent, but here she felt the sea-breeze, and, glancing round for a few moments as she tried to regain her breath, she noted one or two things that pointed to the coming of a storm before many hours had passed. The lights on the point across the bay loomed up so that they were plainly to be seen, and her sea-side life made her read tokens of the tempest in the direction and sound of the wind.
She set off with the intention of going straight along the cliff path to the town, and then up to An Morlock, where she would see and tell Rhoda Penwynn all; but she had not gone far before a horrible feeling of dread began to oppress her. She recalled Tregenna’s looks when he had heard her threat, and she felt now as certain as if she saw him before her that he would try and stop her.
“And if he does meet me?”
She stopped, shivering. Her blood seemed to run cold, and a nameless horror crept over her as she thought of what might be the consequences.
The chill of horror increased, for she dreaded that he would kill her, and now she felt that she would like to live.
Geoffrey Trethick had told her that she should live for the sake of her little one, and for its sake she would forget the world and its bitter ways. She had something indeed to live for now, and she blessed Geoffrey in her heart for awakening her to that fact.
Inspired by this idea, then, she went on cautiously, and with a step as light as that of some bird; but she saw nothing to cause her fear, and began to think that the darkness would befriend her, and hide her from the sight of any watcher who would stop her on her way.
She had already passed the rough path down to the shore, the one up which Geoffrey Trethick had carried her on that terrible night, at the recollection of which she shuddered, and still there was no sign of danger; when suddenly she stopped short, for ahead of her in the darkness there came, plainly heard, the impatient hiss that one might make by a hasty drawing-in of the breath.