shoulders contracted, her teeth chattered, and that feeling of discomfort
was to her as a signal for action. She took another allee of rose-bushes
in flower to reach a point on the bank barren of vegetation, where was
outlined the form of a boat. She soon detached it, and, managing the
heavy oars with her delicate hands, she advanced toward the middle of the
lake.

When she was in the spot which she thought the deepest and the most
suitable for her design, she ceased rowing. Then, by a delicate care,
which made her smile herself, so much did it betray instinctive and
childish order at such a solemn moment, she put her hat, her umbrella and
her gloves on one of the transversal boards of the boat. She had made
effort to move the heavy oars, so that she was perspiring. A second
shudder seized her as she was arranging the trifling objects, so keen,
so chilly, so that time that she paused. She lay there motionless, her
eyes fixed upon the water, whose undulations lapped the boat. At the
last moment she felt reenter her heart, not love of life, but love for
her mother. All the details of the events which would follow her suicide
were presented to her mind.

She saw herself plunging into the deep water which would close over her
head. Her suffering would be ended, but Madame Steno? She saw the
coachman growing uneasy over her absence, ringing at the door of Villa
Torlonia, the servants in search. The loosened boat would relate enough.
Would the Countess know that she had killed herself? Would she know the
cause of that desperate end? The terrible face of Lydia Maitland
appeared to the young girl. She comprehended that the woman hated her
enemy too much not to enlighten her with regard to the circumstances
which had preceded that suicide. The cry so simple and of a significance
so terrible: "You did it purposely!" returned to Alba's memory. She saw