In the burning anguish of that moment her own soul was as an open book before her . The love she had buried rose from the deeps of her being in an awful , accusing resurrection . Out of her stupor and pain a purpose formed itself clearly . She must go to Stephen -- she must beg and win his forgiveness before it was too late . She dared not go down to John and ask him to take her to her husband . He might refuse . The Phillipses had been known to do even harder things than that . At the best there would be a storm of protest and objection on her brother 's and sister 's part , and Emily felt that she could not encounter that in her present mood . It would drive her mad . She lit a lamp and dressed herself noiselessly , but with feverish haste . Then she listened . The house was very still . Amelia and John had gone to bed . She wrapped herself in a heavy woollen shawl hanging in the hall and crept downstairs . With numbed fingers she fumbled at the key of the hall door , turned it and slipped out into the night . The storm seemed to reach out and clutch her and swallow her up . She went through the garden , where the flowers already were crushed to earth ; she crossed the long field beyond , where the rain cut her face like a whip and the wind almost twisted her in its grasp like a broken reed . Somehow or other , more by blind instinct than anything else , she found the path that led through commons and woods and waste valleys to her lost home . In after years that frenzied walk through the storm and blackness seemed as an unbroken nightmare to Emily Fair 's recollection . Often she fell .
Once as she did so a jagged , dead limb XXXXX fir struck her forehead and cut in it a gash that marked her for life .
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