"What DID you do, you naughty, bad thing? Why in the world,
to worry us so--and take our thoughts off, too, don't you know?--
did you desert us at the very door?" I couldn't meet such
questions nor, as they asked them, their false little lovely eyes;
yet it was all so exactly what I should have to meet that,
as the prospect grew sharp to me, I at last let myself go.
I got, so far as the immediate moment was concerned, away; I came straight
out of the churchyard and, thinking hard, retraced my steps through the park.
It seemed to me that by the time I reached the house I had made up my mind I
would fly. The Sunday stillness both of the approaches and of the interior,
in which I met no one, fairly excited me with a sense of opportunity.
Were I to get off quickly, this way, I should get off without a scene,
without a word. My quickness would have to be remarkable, however,
and the question of a conveyance was the great one to settle.
Tormented, in the hall, with difficulties and obstacles, I remember
sinking down at the foot of the staircase--suddenly collapsing there
on the lowest step and then, with a revulsion, recalling that it
was exactly where more than a month before, in the darkness of night
and just so bowed with evil things, I had seen the specter of the most
horrible of women. At this I was able to straighten myself; I went
the rest of the way up; I made, in my bewilderment, for the schoolroom,
where there were objects belonging to me that I should have to take.
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