The girl had worked very hard the previous day, while she had slept none that night, for she had been too much excited, over the thought of leaving her home, to rest, and she now began to experience a feeling of weariness and languor stealing over her. It was the reaction coming on, while added to that was a feeling of dread and loneliness over the uncertainty of the future.
More than this, she found the boots, which Violet had insisted must go with the rest of her costume, were too tight to be comfortable, and this greatly impeded her progress.
She climbed to the top of the cliffs and there sat down by the road-side upon a huge bowlder, where she had rested many a time before, to recover herself a little before going on.
The stone was an irregular one, with a projection which formed a support for her back, and leaning against this, she was overcome by weariness before she knew it and fell into a sound sleep.
It did not seem as if ten minutes had elapsed since she sat down, though in reality it was more than half an hour when the sound of a galloping horse aroused her.
She started to her feet, a cry of terror and dismay breaking from her. It was still so dark that she could see nothing any distance away, but the sound of that swiftly advancing horse made her heart beat with fearful throbs.
Was it some pursuer coming in search of her?
Had her flight been discovered at home, and was her tyrannical step-father coming to force her back into wearisome servitude? or, worse yet, to sell her to another man equally brutal and unkind?
She started to flee, but, not being able to clearly distinguish the road, while she was sadly bewildered by having been so suddenly aroused from her sleep, she turned in the wrong direction and made straight for the edge of the cliff.
It was very strange—as familiar as she was with every inch of the ground between her home and Mentone—that she could have become so confused and lost as to her location, and it was only when she caught the ominous sound of the washing of the waves against the rocks below that she became conscious of her danger.