Why should she attempt it?
Had she not better let herself be killed--she sometimes thought she should be killed, to so great a height of morbid dread had risen her secret agony--and die, quietly, silently, thus escaping out of the hands of her enemies, who pursued her with this relentless hatred.
Dying might have felt easier to her but for one fact--she loved her husband--loved him, as she now knew, so passionately, so engrossingly, that all this misery converged in one single fear--the fear that she might lose his love.

What the world thought of her--what Miss Gascoigne thought of her, became of little account.

All she dreaded was what Dr.Grey would think.

Would he, in his large, tender, compassionate heart, on hearing her confession, say only "Poor thing! she could not help it; she was foolish and young," or would he feel she had deceived him, and cast her off from his trust, his respect, his love for evermore?
In either case she hesitated not for a moment.

Love, bought by a deception, she knew to be absolutely worthless.