This had
fallen off, and she had not cared to stop or think about it, but went on
to her death exactly as she went in to dinner. Her dress of white silk
took the moonlight with a soft gleam like itself, and her clustering
curls (released from fashion by the power of passion) fell, like the
shadows, on her sweet white neck. But she never even asked herself how
she looked; she never turned round to admire her shadow: tomorrow she
would throw no shade, but be one; and how she looked, or what she was,
would matter, to the world she used to think so much of, never more.
Suddenly she passed from the moonlight into the blackness of a lonely
thicket, and forced her way through it, without heed of bruise or rent.
At the bottom of the steep lay the long dark pit, and she stood upon
the brink and gazed into it. To a sane mind nothing could look less
inviting. All above was air and light, freedom of the wind and play of
moon with summer foliage; all below was gloom and horror, cold eternal
stillness, and oblivion everlasting. Even the new white frock awoke no
flutter upon that sullen breast.
Dolly heaved a sigh and shuddered, but she did not hesitate. Her mind
was wandering, but her heart was fixed to make atonement, to give its
life for the life destroyed, and to lie too deep for shame or sorrow.
Suddenly a faint gleam caught her eyes. The sob of self-pity from her
fair young breast had brought into view her cherished treasures, bright
keepsakes of the girlish days when many a lover worshipped her.
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