The recollection of that last interview in the library--which I had lived over and over, nights and days, incessantly, since then, came back with fresh force, fresh vehemence.

But no step approached me, all was silent; it began to impress me strangely, and I looked about me.

I don't know at what moment it was, my eye fell upon the trace of footsteps on the bank, and then on the mark of the boat dragged along the sand; a little below the boat-house it had been pushed off into the water.
I started to my feet, and ran down to the water's edge (at the boat-house the trees had been in the way of my seeing the river any distance).
I stood still, the water lapping faintly on the sand at my feet; it was hardly a sound.

I looked out on the unruffled lead-colored river: there, about quarter of a mile from the bank, the boat was lying: empty -- motionless.

The oars were floating a few rods from her, drifting slowly, slowly, down the stream.
The sight seemed to turn my warm blood and blushes into ice: even before I had a distinct impression of what I feared, I was benumbed.