prepared for flight, and, but for the intervention of the storm, would,
ere then, have been far away.

The firmness of resolve that had impelled a timid maiden upon such a step
was not likely to be broken by one defeat; and Ellen, accordingly,
confident that the stranger would make a second attempt, determined that
no effort on her part should be wanting to its success. On reaching her
chamber, therefore, instead of retiring to rest (of which, from her
sleepless thoughts of the preceding night, she stood greatly in need), she
sat watching for the abatement of the storm. Her meditations were now
calmer than at any time since her first meeting with the angler. She felt
as if her fate was decided. The stain had fallen upon her reputation: she
was no longer the same pure being in the opinion of those whose
approbation she most valued.

One obstacle to her flight--and, to a woman's mind, a most powerful one--
had thus been removed. Dark and intricate as was the way, it was easier
now to proceed than to pause; and her desperate and forlorn situation gave
her a strength which hitherto she had not felt.

At every cessation in the torrent of rain that beat against the house,
Ellen flew to the window, expecting to see the stranger form beneath it.
But the clouds would again thicken, and the storm recommence with its
former violence; and she began to fear that the approach of morning would
compel her to meet the now dreaded face of Dr. Melmoth. At length,
however, a strong and steady wind, supplying the place of the fitful gusts
of the preceding part of the night, broke and scattered the clouds from
the broad expanse of the sky. The moon, commencing her late voyage not
long before the sun, was now visible, setting forth like a lonely ship
from the dark line of the horizon, and touching at many a little silver