She determined, late as
it was, to attempt her own deliverance, and for that purpose began slowly
and cautiously to emerge from the cave.
Peeping out from among the trees, she looked and listened with most
painful anxiety to discover if any living thing were in that seeming
solitude, or if any sound disturbed the heavy stillness. But she saw only
Nature in her wildest forms, and heard only the plash and murmur (almost
inaudible, because continual) of the little waterfall, and the quick,
short throbbing of her own heart, against which she pressed her hand as if
to hush it. Gathering courage, therefore, she began to descend; and,
starting often at the loose stones that even her light footstep displaced
and sent rattling down, she at length reached the base of the crag in
safety. She then made a few steps in the direction, as nearly as she could
judge, by which she arrived at the spot, but paused, with a sudden
revulsion of the blood to her heart, as her guide emerged from behind a
projecting part of the rock. He approached her deliberately, an ironical
smile writhing his features into a most disagreeable expression; while in
his eyes there was something that seemed a wild, fierce joy. By a species
of sophistry, of which oppressors often make use, he had brought himself
to believe that he was now the injured one, and that Ellen, by her
distrust of him, had fairly subjected herself to whatever evil it
consisted with his will and power to inflict upon her.
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