far and wide the white mist lay like a vast winding-sheet; now and then
through the stillness I heard, or seemed to hear, a moan--a mournful
wail, as of some spirit just released from earthly bonds, and forced to
leave its dear ones behind. The moonlight looked cruel, and the water
very, very cold. Someone had told me that death by drowning was swift
and painless. Those stars up there were millions of miles away; how long
would it take my soul, I wondered, to travel that distance--to reach
those glowing orbs--to leave them behind? How glorious such a journey,
beyond all power of thought, to track one's way among the worlds that
flash through space! In the world I should leave there would be one
person only who would mourn for me--Sister Agnes, who would--But what
noise was that?

A noise, low and faint at first, just taking the edge of silence with a
musical murmur that seemed to die out for an instant now and again, then
coming again stronger than before, and so growing by fine degrees louder
and more confirmed, and resolving itself at last into a sound which
could not be mistaken for that of anything but falling water. The sound
was clearly in front of me; I was being swept resistlessly towards it. A
curve of the river and a swelling of the banks hid everything from me.
The sound was momently growing louder, and had distinctly resolved
itself into the roar and rush of some great body of water. I shuddered
and grasped the sides of the boat with both hands.

Suddenly the curve was rounded, and there, almost in front of me, was a
mass of buildings, and there, too, spanning the river, was what looked
to me like a trellis-work bridge, and on the bridge was a human figure.
The roar and noise of the cataract were deafening, but louder than all
was my piercing cry for help. He who stood on the bridge heard it. I saw
him fling up his hands as if in sudden horror, and that was the last