No one stirred to obey the cruel order; but Helen turned and waved her hand, roused into some firmness by the cruel treatment she met with. "That shall not be needed, Madam," she said. "I go; and when you stand at the awful judgment-seat of God, with all your sins upon your head; when all that you have done through life comes up before you as a picture, may you find a more merciful judge than you have proved to me." "Away with you, away with you!" cried the Marchioness, adding the coarsest term of reprobation that in the French language can be applied to woman. "It is ever thus with such wretches as you: when detected in sin, they begin to cant. Away with you, I say; let us hear no more of it!" Helen turned, and walked slowly towards the door; but the page ran after her, exclaiming, "Here is your veil, Mademoiselle; you left it below last night." Helen took it; but before she could thank him, the Marchioness strode forward, and dealt him a box on the ear that cast him upon the ground, exclaiming "who taught thee to meddle malapert?" "Ah, poor boy!" cried Helen; and with the tears in her eyes, she quitted the inhospitable doors, within which virtue and happiness had been sacrificed for ever. For some way, she walked along utterly unconscious where she went. We must not say, she thought either of her situation at the time, of the past, or of the future; for there was nothing like thought in her mind. It was all despair; she asked not herself where she should go, what should be her conduct, what place of refuge she should find, how she should obtain even necessary food. The predominant sensation, if any were predominant, was a wish to die; and any road which led her from that hateful mansion was to her the same. This troubled state continued for some minutes, till a small wood concealed her from the castle; but still she walked on, or rather ran; for her steps, under the impetuous course of her own feelings, grew quicker each moment as she went. At length she heard the sound of horses' feet and the grating roll of carriage wheels, and a vague remembrance of having seen the heavy coach of Madame de Chazeul standing prepared before the gates, made her believe that she was pursued by that terrible woman, and, a sudden feeling of terror taking possession of her, she darted in amongst the trees, and crouched behind some brushwood.