As now she paced the attic, the walls of which had witnessed her long agony, her thoughts, as at such periods they always did, travelled to the fatal time which had wrecked her peace and almost destroyed her reason. She had hitherto suffered without repining, but her spirit began to rebel against the injustice of the fate which had stripped her life of joy. Until now there had been nothing of sullenness in her resignation; she had accepted her hard lot with passive unreasoning submission; and had flung back no stones, even in thought, in return for those that were cast at her. But she seemed on this night to have reached the supreme point of resignation, and some sense of the heartless wrong which had been inflicted upon her stole into her soul. But this new feeling did not debar her from the contemplation of the night outside her room. It was snowing, Lizzie had said. She could not resist the fascination of the words; they drew her to the window; they compelled her to pluck the curtain aside. The snow was falling. With feverish haste, scarce knowing what she was doing, she fastened her bonnet, flung her shawl over her shoulders, and walked into the streets. There were but few persons stirring in her neighbourhood; the public-houses, of course, were full, and the street-vendors were stamping their feet upon the pavement, more from habit, being in the presence of snow, than from necessity, for the weather was a long way from freezing-point; but Mrs. Lenoir paid no heed to the signs about her. Her thoughts were her companions, to divert her attention from which would need something more powerful than ordinary sights and sounds. She did not appear to be conscious of the road she was taking, nor to care whither she directed her steps. Now and then, a passer-by paused to gaze after the excited woman, who speeded onwards as though an enemy were on her track. So fast did she walk that she was soon out of the narrow labyrinths, and treading the wider thoroughfares, past the Royal Exchange and Mansion House, through Cheapside and St. Paul's Churchyard, into the busier life of Fleet Street--to avoid which, or from some unseen motive, she turned mechanically to the left, and came on to the Embankment, by the side of the river. Then, for the first time, she paused, but not for long. The moon was shining, and a long rippling line of light stretched to the edge of the water, at some distance from the spot on which she stood, where it lapped with a dismal sound the stone steps of a landing-place. The waves washed the rippling light on to the dark slimy stones, and, to her fevered fancy, the light crept up the stones to the level surface of the pavement, along which it slowly unwound itself, like a coil, until it touched her feet. With a shudder, she stepped into this imaginary line of light, not hurriedly now, but softly on and on, down the steps, until her shoes were in the water. A man rose like a black shadow from a