ded from the place she was filling, how could she be
the person to reproach him? She was dumb.

It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher
there with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making
purchases--really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and
had had interviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her
uneasy mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her
ultimate triumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the
marriage dissolve itself in one way or other--Lush hinted at several
ways--leaving the succession assured to her boy. She had had an
interview with Grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave
like a reasonable woman, and threatened punishment if she were
troublesome; but had, also as usual, vindicated himself from any wish
to be stingy, the money he was receiving from Sir Hugo on account of
Diplow encouraging him to be lavish. Lydia, feeding on the
probabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless wrath along with that
pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her discretion go
entirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparition before
Gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet of
venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the
other side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush
the likely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that
post, daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh
into the Park?

The Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia's conception by
the shock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this
woman who had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the
children she had borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast
on the lot of a woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread
itself over her visions of a future that might be her own, and made
part of her dread on her own behalf. She shrank all the more from any
lonely action. What possible release could there be for her from this
hated vantage ground, which yet she dared not quit, any more than if
fire had been raining outside it? What release, but death? Not her own
death. Gwendolen was not a woman who could easily think of her own
death as a near reality, or front for herself the dark entrance on the
untried and invisible. It seemed more possible that Grandcourt should
die: