imaged in her mind when she shut
herself up in her room and stood alone in the midst of the chamber
clenching her dark hands high above her white veiled head, and uttering
curses which were spells, and spells which were curses.

Emily was glad that she had elected to be alone as much as possible, and
had not invited people to come and stay with her. She had not invited
people, in honest truth, because she felt shy of the responsibility of
entertainment while Walderhurst was not with her. It would have been
proper to invite his friends, and his friends were all people she was
too much in awe of, and too desirous to please to be able to enjoy
frankly as society. She had told herself that when she had been married
a few years she would be braver.

And now her gladness was so devout that it was pure rejoicing. How could
she have been calm, how could she have been conversational, while
through her whole being there surged but one thought. She was sure that
while she talked to people she would have been guilty of looking as if
she was thinking of something not in the least connected with
themselves.

If she had been less romantically sentimental in her desire to avoid all
semblance of burdening her husband she would have ordered him home at
once, and demanded as a right the protection of his dignity and
presence. If she had been less humble she would have felt the importance
of her position and the gravity of the claims it gave her to his
consideration, instead of being lost in prayerful gratitude to heaven.

She had been rather stupidly mistaken in not making a confidante of Lady
Maria Bayne, but she had been, in her big girl shyness, entirely like
herself. In some remote part of her nature she had shrunk from a certain
look of delighted amusement which she had known would have betrayed
itself, despite her ladyship's good intentions, in the eyes assisted by
the smart gold lorgnette. She knew she was inclined to be
hyper-emotional on this subject, and she felt that if she had seen the
humour trying to conceal itself behind the eye-glasses, she might have
been hysterical enough to cry even while she tried to laugh, and pass
her feeling off lightly. Oh, no! Oh, no! Somehow she _knew_ that at such
a moment, for some fantastic, if subtle, reason, Lady Maria would only
see her as Emily Fox-Seton, that she would have actually figured before
her for an instant as poor Emily Fox-Seton making an odd confession. She
could not have