did not
take a moment to make up her mind. They all hated her, but not more than
she hated herself. They were quite right to hate her, quite right to
feel horror at her presence. Her mother had often spoken to her of the
consequences of unbridled passion, but no words that her mother could
ever have used came up to the grim reality. Of course, she must go away,
and at once. She sat down on the side of her bed, pressed her hand to
her forehead, and reflected. In the starved state she was in, the little
drop of wine she had taken had brought on a violent headache. For a time
she found it difficult to collect her thoughts.

CHAPTER XI.

THE WORTH OF A DIAMOND.

Flower quite made up her mind to go away again. Her mood, however, had
completely changed. She was no longer in a passion; on the contrary, she
felt stricken and wounded. She would go away now to hide herself,
because her face, her form, the sound of her step, the echo of her
voice, must be painful to those whom she had injured. She shuddered as
she recalled Firefly's sad words:

"Father says it is wrong to hate any one, but, of course, we cannot love
you."

She felt that she could never look Polly in the face again, that Helen's
gentle smile would be torture to her. Oh, of course she must go away;
she must go to-night.

She was very tired, for she had really scarcely rested since her fit of
mad passion, and the previous night she had never gone to bed. Still all
this mattered nothing. There was a beating in her heart, there was a
burning sting of remorse awakened within her, which made even the
thought of rest impossible.

Flower was a very wild and untaught creature; her ideas of right and
wrong were of the crudest. It seemed to her now that the only right
thing was to run away.

When the house was quiet, she once more opened her little cabinet, and
took from thence the last great treasure which it contained. It was one
solitary splendid unset diamond. She had not the least idea of its
value, but she knew that it would probably fetch a pound or two. She had
not the least notion of the value of money or of the preciousness of the
gem which she held in her hand, but she thought it likely that it would
supply her immediate needs.

The house was quite still now. She took off her green cloth dress, put
on a very plain one of black cashmere, slipped a little velvet cap on
her head, wrapped a long white shawl round her, and thus equipped opened
her d