There she could hear the whole train pass by; and as they wound on down the hill, she saw the well-known colours and figures sweep slowly on till, as they were beginning to rise on the opposite slope, they came to a sudden halt, and a consultation seemed to take place. In a few minutes two horsemen detached themselves from the rest, and passed the wood in a gallop towards the château; but poor Helen remained in her place of concealment; and, as she did so, the tumultuous agitation of her heart and brain grew somewhat calmer, and a long and bitter flood of tears brought thought along with it. But, oh how terrible was reflection! how did she bemoan her own fatal folly! how desolate seemed her heart! how hopeless--how utterly hopeless--seemed her situation! Where could she hide her head? she asked herself--where cover her shame?--where conceal herself from the eyes of all men?--who would help?--who would assist her?--who would speak one word of comfort, of consolation, of sympathy? None, none. From the sympathy of the virtuous and the good she had cut herself off for ever! Was she to associate with the abandoned and profligate?--was evil to become her good?--was moral death to bring her mere mortal life? Ah, no! she would sooner die, she thought, a thousand-fold sooner die; and she abhorred herself for her weakness past, more than many who think themselves virtuous, would abhor themselves for actual crime. "Why should I stay here?" she asked herself at length. "I am an outcast--a beggar; my father and mother in the grave; my uncle's face I dare not see; I have no one to seek--I have no road to choose; the wide world is before me; I must trust myself to fate;" and rising up, with the feeling of desolate despair taking possession of her once more, she followed the path before her, then turned into another, then wandered along a third, and thus went on for nearly an hour-and-a-half, with several of the country people who passed her, turning round to gaze in surprise at so fair and delicate a creature straying abroad, with a vacant air and tear-stained countenance, at so early an hour of the morning. At length she felt weary; and with listless indifference to all that might befal her, she seated herself on a stone, at the foot of a wooden cross, which had been erected by some pious hand beneath a high tree-covered bank, down which the snow, now melting under the first warmth of spring, was slipping from time to time in large masses, or sending forth a thousand small streams, which rendered the road almost like the bed of a river.