She had always been conscious, since the idea had entered her mind, that she would lack the power to step boldly up on to the parapet and go over at once, as the bathers do when they tumble headlong into the stream that has no dangers for them.
She had known that she must crouch, and pause, and think of it, and look at it, and nerve herself with the memory of her wrongs.

Then, at some moment in which her heart was wrung to the utmost, she would gradually slacken her hold, and the dark, black, silent river should take her.

She climbed up into the niche, and found that the river was very far from her, though death was so near to her and the fall would be so easy.

When she became aware that there was nothing between her and the great void space below her, nothing to guard her, nothing left to her in all the world to protect her, she retreated, and descended again to the pavement.

And never in her life had she moved with more care, lest, inadvertently, a foot or a hand might slip, and she might tumble to her doom against her will.
When she was again on the pathway she remembered her note to Anton-- that note which was already in his hands.