Part 67 (2/2)

She could endure the plane of existence on which she found herself no longer. If she fled in search of other conditions, it was with full certainty that these could not be less tolerable than those from which she was flying, and at the back of her mind was a strange, growing hope that perhaps that forgiveness of which her mind was full, might be found beyond the veil.

”After all,” thought Alex, ”it's even chances. If religion is all true, then I _must_ go to h.e.l.l, whether I kill myself or not, and if it isn't, then perhaps I shall just go out and know nothing more--ever--or perhaps it will be really a new beginning, and there will be somebody or something who will forgive me, and let me start over again.”

She began to feel rather excited, as though she were about to try an experiment that might best be described as a gamble.

Mrs. Hoxton, coming in with the small supper-tray, looked at her sharply two or three times, and when she had gone away again, Alex, turning to the gla.s.s, saw that her eyes were s.h.i.+ning and looking enormously large and wide-pupilled.

”I believe I am happy tonight,” she thought wonderingly.

While she ate her supper she tried to make a plan, but the excitement within her was growing steadily, and she could only think out eager self-justification for her own decision.

”It won't hurt any one else--n.o.body will mind. In fact, when they've got over the first shock, it will be a relief to them all. They've been very kind--Violet and Cedric--Violet most of all--but they haven't understood. They'd have understood better if I'd been a bad woman--lived with wicked men, or things like that. I suppose I should have done that too, if it had come my way--but then I never had the temptation. I had only little, mean, horrible temptations--and I didn't resist any of them. The other sort of sin would have made me happier--it would have meant a sort of success in a way--but I have been a failure at everything--always.”

Her heart hammering against her side, Alex resolved that in this, her last disgrace, she would not fail.

Making no preparations, no written farewells, she rose presently and went to her room, where she put on her thickest coat and tied a woollen scarf over her head.

Then she went out.

It had stopped raining, and the air was soft and moist. It was a starless night, and when Alex got to the Heath and away from the lighted streets, it was very dark. Underneath her sense of adventure she was conscious of terror--sheer physical terror--and also of the deeper dread that her resolution might fail her.

”I mustn't--I mustn't,” she kept on muttering to herself.

Then, as though rea.s.suring somebody else, ”But it's only like going for a journey--to a quite new place where everything may be different and much, much better ... or else to sleep, and never any waking up to misery again.... Just one dreadful minute or two, perhaps, and then it will all be over ... only a question of a little physical courage ...

not to struggle ... like taking gas ... much easier if one doesn't struggle....”

She was struck by a sudden thought and said aloud, triumphantly, as though she were defeating by her inspiration some one who was urging difficulties upon her:

”I won't give myself any chances. I'll put big stones in my pocket and tie my scarf over my mouth. That'll make it quicker, too.”

When she came to the part of the Heath where the water lay, Alex began to stoop down and hunt for stones. She pounced on each one that seemed larger than its fellows with a sense of pride at her own success, and put them into the pockets of her coat. The moon appeared palely through clouds and then disappeared again, but not before she had taken her bearings.

She was on one of the many wide bridges that span the long pools dotted over the Heath--pools shelving at the sides with an effect of shallowness and deepening suddenly in the middle. Alex threw an indifferent glance at the dark water, and only felt annoyance that so few stones should be loose upon the pathway, and none of them very large ones. When her pockets were filled, she did not think the weight very noticeable.

Then came another evanescent gleam of moonlight, and Alex, still with that sharpening of all her perceptions, noticed that there was a man's figure at the far end of the bridge. He appeared to be stationary, leaning on the parapet and gazing down at the almost invisible pond.

She was conscious of vexation. His presence would surely interfere with her scheme.

For a moment she wondered, detachedly enough, whether she should go away and come back the following evening. But the next instant she recoiled from the thought, as though seeing in it the promptings of her own weakness.

”I am not frightened tonight--at least, hardly at all. If I wait I may never feel like this again. I shall make a failure of it all, and that would be worse than anything. I must do it tonight, while I'm not frightened.”

She was not cold. Walking in her heavy coat had warmed her, and the evening was mild as well as damp. So she waited quietly in the shadow, hoping that the man would presently move away.

The thought crossed her mind, with a certain humour, that the situation held possibilities of romance.

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