t. No; she would go to Mirah. This last form
taken by her need was more definitely practicable, and quickly became
imperious. No matter what came of it. She had the pretext of asking
Mirah to sing at her party on the fourth. What was she going to say
beside? How satisfy? She did not foresee--she could not wait to
foresee. If that idea which was maddening her had been a living thing,
she would have wanted to throttle it without waiting to foresee what
would come of the act. She rang her bell and asked if Mr. Grandcourt
were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the carriage, and began
to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked about the large
drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not recognizing herself
in the glass panels, not noting any object around her in the painted
gilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where she had been,
and punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could neither
desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had not
been deluding herself in her trust.

She was provided with Mirah's address. Soon she was on the way with all
the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart,
depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning
which she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what
happened before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of
lobbies and passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of
everything till she was in a room where there were folding-doors, and
she heard Deronda's voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was
helped by forecast, but she was as certain of it as if she had seen
him. She was frightened at her own agitation, and began to unbutton her
gloves that she might button them again, and bite her lips over the
pretended difficulty, while the door opened, and Mirah presented
herself with perfect quietude and a sweet smile of recognition. There
was relief in the sight of her face, and Gwendolen was able to smile in
return, while she put out her hand in silence; and as she seated
herself, all the while hearing the voice, she felt some reflux of
energy in the confused sense that the truth could not be anything that
she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the
sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor
with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone, with
something that seemed like bashfu