n
no way accounted for the startling suggestion, that whether dream or
waking thought had first filled her with fear and then set her heart
beating hard as she lay wide awake breathing unevenly and striving to
learn if she were still under the influence of a dream, or if the
unconscious conviction which had come upon her was the result of
dwelling upon what she knew. She could not recall her dreams, but they
seemed to her to have had no connection with the sudden sense of danger
that had startled her awake. She tried to throw it off, but it was like
the objects in the room that had seemed almost invisible at first, but
that grew every moment more distinct to her as she watched them. She
felt more and more sure that the danger was real, however the knowledge
of it had come; a terrible danger, but not to herself. It seemed strange
now that she had been blind so long, and yet, how could she have
suspected such a horror? Lord Bulchester felt it, too, only that he
would not allow himself to believe it. But it was he who had brought
conviction home; it would never have come, she thought, if she had not
seen him yesterday. But it had come, and it remained. It held her like a
vise, drawing her back toward it whenever she tried to escape, driving
off sleep forcibly when more than once that seemed about to seize her.
What was she to do with it? Plainly, something. It and rest could never
dwell together. But what? And how could she do it? A conviction which
pressed upon herself with the force of a certainty, and yet had no
proofs by which to establish itself, was not an easy thing to make felt
by another mind. And when it was a conviction of danger, and that other
had by nature and training a contempt of danger, the difficulties were
increased. Added to this were other difficulties which Elizabeth felt
keenly; but the fear was stronger than them all. The longer she studied
the matter the more she saw that the only thing for her to do was the
one thing that she shrank from most. All the freedom left her was to
find out the best way of doing it.

When the dimness of starlight began to grow into the dawn, she arose.
But she delayed at her toilet, standing so long in thought with her
brush in her hand, and her dark hair sweeping over her shoulders, that
it was six o'clock before she crossed the hall and knocked at her
father's door.

There was no answer. She knocked again, with the same result, and then
opening the door, found the r