Yet she called him. She got out of the window and took a few paces on
one side and on the other in the darkness, still calling his name in a
voice of soft entreaty. In his old drunken days she had scorned him. She
scorned him now more than ever, but she still believed that her call
would never reach his ear in vain. In this hour of her extremity she
must make sure of his absence by running the risk of having to endure
his nearer presence. When she knew that he was not there, she took a
bundle from inside the room, shut down the window through which she had
escaped, and wrapping her head and hands in a thin black shawl such as
Indian women drape themselves with, she sped off over the dark grass to
the river.

Overhead, the stars sparkled in a sky that seemed almost black. The
houses and trees, the thick scrubby bushes and long grass, were just
visible in all the shades of monochrome that night produces.

In a few minutes she was beyond all the houses, gliding through a wood
by the river. The trees were high and black, and there was a faint
musical sound of wind in them. She heard it as she heard everything.
More than once she stopped, not fearful, but watching. She must have
looked like the spirit of primeval silence as she stood at such moments,
lifting her shawl from her head to listen; then she went on. She knew
where a boat had by chance been left that day; it was a small rough
boat, lying close under the roots of a pine tree, and tied to its trunk.
In this she bestowed her bundle, and untying the string, pushed from the
shore. She could hardly see the opposite side of the little Ahwewee in
the darkness; she rowed at once into the midst of its rapid current;
once there, she dipped her oars to steer rather than to propel. She
travelled swiftly with the black stream.