She
wished he too might know desolation, and cold, and a life of shame that
he dared not end by death.
The horror of this cold, and darkness, and solitude--out of all human
reach--became greater every long minute. It was almost as if she were
dead already, and knew that she was dead, and longed to get back to life
again. But no: she was alive still; she had not taken the dreadful
leap. She felt a strange contradictory wretchedness and exultation:
wretchedness, that she did not dare to face death; exultation, that she
was still in life--that she might yet know light and warmth again. She
walked backwards and forwards to warm herself, beginning to discern
something of the objects around her, as her eyes became accustomed to
the night--the darker line of the hedge, the rapid motion of some living
creature--perhaps a field-mouse--rushing across the grass. She no longer
felt as if the darkness hedged her in. She thought she could walk back
across the field, and get over the stile; and then, in the very next
field, she thought she remembered there was a hovel of furze near a
sheepfold. If she could get into that hovel, she would be warmer. She
could pass the night there, for that was what Alick did at Hayslope
in lambing-time.
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