Then indeed shame came upon Mary. She saw herself gibbeted between them, knew too well what he would think. He would himself hang her up, since truth demanded it, and since Camelia must be comforted. The glaring lucidity dazzled Mary a little at times, and now the awful justice of Perior's character assumed in her eyes a Jove-like cruelty, that more than matched Camelia's dastardliness. The past hour seemed painless in comparison with the present moment; its blackness, in looking back at it, was gray. To be debased, utterly debased, in his eyes--that was to drink the very dregs of her cup of agony. Her hatred of Camelia was her only guide in the night. She went into the hall and took down her hat and cloak. She could not wait for Camelia's return. She must herself see the actuality of her betrayal. Camelia might lie unless she could hold the truth before her face; might say that she had not ridden to Perior's. Mary would see for herself, and then--oh then! confronting Camelia, she would find words, if she died in speaking them.
She ran down the avenue and turned off into the woods by a short cut that led more directly than the curving high road to the Grange. Her weakness was braced by the fierceness of her purpose. She felt herself a flame, hastening relentlessly through the smoke-like mist.
The woods were cold and wet. She pushed past dripping branches, splashed through muddy pools; the inner fire ignored its panting frame. When she arrived at the foot of the hill on which stood the Grange, she knew that Camelia must have been with him there for an hour or more. She could not see the house through the heavy atmosphere, but, hidden by the trees and fog, she could see the road and be herself unseen. On the edge of the wood was a little stile; she shuddered with wet and cold as she sat down on it to wait. She would wait for Camelia to pass, and then, by the same hidden path, she could go home and confront her. Beyond that crash Mary did not look. It seemed final.
But Mary was quite mistaken--as absolute logic is apt to be when dealing with human beings. Camelia, indeed, had gone to Perior, but on a very different errand from the one Mary's imagination painted for her. Camelia was not thinking of herself, nor of throwing off the iron chains of that responsibility with which she felt herself manacled for life. Mary's story had crushed every thought of self, beyond that consciousness of riveted guilt. It was of Mary alone she thought as she galloped through the mist. With terror and pity infinite she looked upon Mary's love and the approaching death that was to end it; their tragedy filled everything, and at the feet of the majestic presences her own personality only felt itself as a cowering criminal. It was as though the ocean of another's suffering had flooded the complacent rivers of her life. They overflowed their narrow channels; they were engulfed, effaced in the mighty desolation; never again could they find their flowering banks, their sunny horizons.