Then,
at some moment in which her heart was wrung to the utmost, she would
gradually slacken her hold, and the dark, black, silent river should
take her. She climbed up into the niche, and found that the river was
very far from her, though death was so near to her and the fall would
be so easy. When she became aware that there was nothing between her
and the great void space below her, nothing to guard her, nothing left
to her in all the world to protect her, she retreated, and descended
again to the pavement. And never in her life had she moved with more
care, lest, inadvertently, a foot or a hand might slip, and she might
tumble to her doom against her will.
When she was again on the pathway she remembered her note to Anton--
that note which was already in his hands. What would he think of her if
she were only to threaten the deed, and then not perform it? And would
she allow him to go unpunished? Should he triumph, as he would do if
she were now to return to the house which she had told him she had
left? She clasped her hands together tightly, and pressed them first
to her bosom and then to her brow, and then again she returned to the
niche from which the fall into the river must be made.
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