Where the bank sloped to the water a couple of plane trees grew, shaking their dusty summer foliage against the fading blue; the Countess crossed, stood beneath them and looked along the reaches of the river.
She thought of people who had drowned themselves in these waters, and tried to imagine the sensation of sinking beneath the sunset ripples.
A party of young apprentices came by, unmoored a boat, and went off down the river to the sound of laughter and the splash of oars, but they looked at her, and the manner of it reminded her of her appearance and the likelihood of causing comment; she wore a thin muslin dress and a red silk mantle, her hair hung in powdered curls under her wide straw hat, and she carried a useless parasol. An unusual figure for this neighbourhood at this hour, and one that could not long go unquestioned.
Becoming conscious of the observation of the few passers-by, she moved along the bank in the direction of the Abbey of Westminster.
The sun sank and the gold died swiftly from land and water; a little wind rose and clouds began to obscure the sky. The Countess shivered in her light clothing, and the exaltation in her freedom died as swiftly as it had come; she was aware only that she was lonely, unprotected, that she had missed her way and must find it, must find Marius.
As her thoughts dwelt on him, the old sore, passions that always accompanied her unnameable feeling for my lord's brother, sprang to life—hatred of her husband, of her father, bitter desire to be avenged, to pull them all down.
She moved on quickly. For all the chilling wind she shuddered with a sense of inward heat, and giddiness now and then clouded her vision. She remembered that she had been ill last night, that she had not slept at all, and a horrible fear of sudden death possessed her; she recalled tales of people dying without warning—in the street, at the table.
She hurried on. The clouds had silently and swiftly covered the sky. As she turned into the square by the Parliament House dusk had overspread the city, and a few drops of rain began to fall. Beneath the Abbey towers she paused, bewildered.
Somewhere near here Marius lived—but where? Before her marriage she had seldom travelled further than Bedford Row, and since she had kept completely to Lyndwood House and the resorts of fashion, and never before had she been in the streets alone. This part of the town was utterly strange to her; she felt weary, too, and frightened, a new sensation. What if Marius were abroad, or refused to see her—or scorned her utterly, as these men could?
Then her resolve and daring rose, running like a flame through her veins. She stopped a solitary hackney that passed and told the man to drive to Smith's Square; alighting there she paid him quietly as if 'twere a customary action, and looked about her. The Square was quite empty and the rain falling heavily in the gusts of the wind.