eeling that took possession of and overwhelmed her. Something like it
she had experienced before: to-day her thoughts seemed to run through
her in pulsations, like waves of heat, and she wondered that she could
have controlled herself while listening to Lily Dallam.

Mrs. Dallam's reproaches presented themselves to Honora in new aspects.
She began to feel now, with an intensity that frightened her, distaste
and rebellion. It was intolerable that she should be called to account
for the people she chose to have in her house, that any sort of pressure
should be brought to bear on her to confine her friends to Quicksands.
Treason, heresy, disloyalty to the cult of that community--in reality
these, and not a breach of engagement, were the things of which she
had been accused. She saw now. She would not be tied to Quicksands--she
would not, she would not, she would not! She owed it no allegiance. Her
very soul rebelled at the thought, and cried out that she was made for
something better, something higher than the life she had been leading.
She would permit no one forcibly to restrict her horizon.

Just where and how this higher and better life was to be found
Honora did not know; but the belief of her childhood--that it existed
somewhere--was still intact. Her powers of analysis, we see, are only
just budding, and she did not and could not define the ideal existence
which she so unflaggingly sought. Of two of its attributes only she was
sure--that it was to be free from restraint and from odious comparisons.
Honora's development, it may be remarked, proceeds by the action of
irritants, and of late her protest against Quicksands and what it
represented had driven her to other books besides the treatise on
bridge. The library she had collected at Rivington she had brought with
her, and was adding to it from time to time. Its volumes are neither
sufficiently extensive or profound to enumerate.

Those who are more or less skilled in psychology may attempt to
establish a sequence between the events and reflections just related
and the fact that, one morning a fortnight later, Honora found herself
driving northward on Fifth Avenue in a hansom cab. She was in a
pleasurable state of adventurous excitement, comparable to that Columbus
must have felt when the shores of the Old World had disappeared below
the horizon. During the fortnight we have skipped Honora had been to
town several times, and had driven and walked through certain s