Men, and beasts likewise, when stricken with a mortal wound, will run, and
run on, blindly, aimless, impelled by the mere instinct of escape from
intolerable agony. And so did Torfrida. Half undrest as she was, she fled
forth into the forest, she knew not whither, running as one does wrapt in
fire: but the fire was not without her, but within.
She cast a passing glance at the girl who lay by her, sleeping a pure and
gentle sleep--
"O that thou hadst but been a boy!" Then she thought no more of her, not
even of Hereward: but all of which she was conscious was a breast and
brain bursting; an intolerable choking, from which she must escape.
She ran, and ran on, for miles. She knew not whether the night was light
or dark, warm or cold. Her tender feet might have been ankle deep in snow.
The branches over her head might have been howling in the tempest, or
dripping with rain. She knew not, and heeded not. The owls hooted to each
other under the staring moon, but she heard them not. The wolves glared at
her from the brakes, and slunk off appalled at the white ghostly figure:
but she saw them not. The deer stood at gaze in the glades till she was
close upon them, and then bounded into the wood. She ran right at them,
past them, heedless. She had but one thought. To flee from the agony of a
soul alone in the universe with its own misery.
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