She closed the door after her, and was gone.
Marion turned the key and sat down to think.
The events of the past hour had added a fresh and surprising subject for thought to the situation. What deliverance could have been more thorough, more opportune, or more unexpected? Now that she was safe within walls, securely housed and sheltered, she recognised the gravity of her position an hour ago. What would have become of her but for this kind and thoughtful woman? She did not know. She could not answer the question; but the fact she was unable to answer was more terrible than any answer she could conceive. To wander another night through those weary streets! She could not have done it. She should have fallen down and died; or if she did not die, no doubt the police would take her to the station or somewhere else.
This was the first time she had been from under the protection of her father or mother or aunt, and she felt as if the ground beneath her was no longer solid and trustworthy, but full of holes and other dangers.
And then the thought of her poor old invalid kind aunt rushed in upon her, and she sobbed. What would the poor old woman do now that she was gone? Marion knew very well her aunt had no thought of anything in this world but herself, Marion. She knew that never fell greater desolation on a mother than would fall on her heart when the fact of her flight broke upon her for the first time. She could not conceive what the poor old woman would do. Perhaps she might die. That would be a merciful end of this wearying tragedy. If she, too, might only die here in secret, where no one knew, where even her name had never been heard, would never be known! What a delivery death would be! Sudden and painless death she would prefer, but she would not shirk pain, if it proved the gateway to release. She was not conscious of any great wickedness; and she believed she should find nothing in the hereafter so bad as what she now endured.
Then she knelt down and said a short prayer, begging of God to take her that night as she lay in sleep.
She was as loyal-hearted a maiden as man need hope to win. And as she lay down to sleep that night she wished and prayed that she might die, for her sweetheart's ease. After God, she held him first, above all considerations of self or others. She was profoundly sorry for her poor helpless aunt. If the question had arisen as to whether she or her aunt should die, she would have freely offered herself as the victim; if her offer was rejected, she would have felt resigned. But on the question of whether he or she should be sacrificed, she would not have allowed the right of any human interference. She was, by the nature of her womanhood and the quality of her love, the natural victim in any such sacrifice. She would have gone gladly to the stake for him, as she had despairingly gone into exile away from him.
Then she fell asleep.
It was a broad open plain, bounded on all its four straight sides by swift impassable rivers. In that wonderful atmosphere it was possible to see objects distinctly at enormous distances. All this vast plain, hundreds and hundreds of miles every way you looked, was dotted, at regular intervals, with groups of mounted men, a vast horde, more numerous than all the armies of the world combined. These bodies of men kept moving from spot to spot, always movements of equal length, like draughts on a board. Yet no one body of men came in contact with any other. They always kept at regular distances; and the most curious thing was, that although there seemed to be a body of cavalry for each space, so that every space was occupied, they moved about from square to square without touching or filling up the blank places, which were only half the size of the occupied spaces.
There was another curious thing too about those squares of men. No matter how far remote from the eye--and some of them are evidently thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of miles away--the movements of those that were remotest were only equal to those immediate to the eye, and yet looked as great.