placed, without speaking, almost without moving, till late in the afternoon. At three o'clock she roused herself, asked for some bread and cheese which she put in her pocket, and started again upon her journey. She thought that she would be safe, at any rate for that day, from the magistrates and the policemen, from the sight of her brother, and from the presence of that other man at Heytesbury. But whither she would go when she left the house,--whether on to the hated cottage at Pycroft Common, or to her father's house, she had not made up her mind when she tied on her hat. She went on along the road towards Devizes, and about two miles from the village she came to a lane turning to the left, with a finger-post. On this was written a direction,--To Bullhampton and Imber; and here she turned short off towards the parish in which she had been born. It was then four o'clock, and when she had travelled a mile further she found a nook under the wall of a little bridge, and there she seated herself, and ate her dinner of bread and cheese. While she was there a policeman on foot passed along the road. The man did not see her, and had he seen her would have taken no more than a policeman's ordinary notice of her; but she saw him, and in consequence did not leave her hiding-place for hours. About nine o'clock she crept on again, but even then her mind was not made up. She did not even yet know where she would bestow herself for that night. It seemed to her that there would be an inexpressible pleasure to her, even in her misery, in walking round the precincts of the mill, in gazing at the windows of the house, in standing on the bridge where she had so often loitered, and in looking once more on the scene of her childhood. But, as she thought of this, she remembered the darkness of the stream, and the softly-gurgling but rapid flow with which it hurried itself on beneath the black abyss of the building. She had often shuddered as she watched it, indulging herself in the luxury of causeless trepidation. But now, were she there, she would surely take that plunge into the blackness, which would bring her to the end of all her misery! And yet, as she went on towards her old home, through the twilight, she had no more definite idea than that of looking once more on the place which had been cherished in her memory through all her sufferings. As to her rest for the night she had no plan,--unless, indeed, she might find her rest in the hidden mill-pool of that dark, softly-gurgling stream.