nd ran with all her speed to
the Manor House, without stopping or turning her head, and splitting
her thin boots in her haste. She entered her own dwelling, as she had
emerged from it, by the drawing-room window. In other circumstances she
would have felt some timidity at undertaking such an unpremeditated
excursion alone; but her anxiety for another had cast out her fear for
herself.

Everything in her drawing-room was just as she had left it--the candles
still burning, the casement closed, and the shutters gently pulled to,
so as to hide the state of the window from the cursory glance of a
servant entering the apartment. She had been gone about three-quarters
of an hour by the clock, and nobody seemed to have discovered her
absence. Tired in body but tense in mind, she sat down, palpitating,
round-eyed, bewildered at what she had done.

She had been betrayed by affrighted love into a visit which, now that
the emotion instigating it had calmed down under her belief that
Fitzpiers was in no danger, was the saddest surprise to her. This was
how she had set about doing her best to escape her passionate bondage
to him! Somehow, in declaring to Grace and to herself the unseemliness
of her infatuation, she had grown a convert to its irresistibility. If
Heaven would only give her strength; but Heaven never did! One thing
was indispensable; she must go away from Hintock if she meant to
withstand further temptation. The struggle was too wearying, too
hopeless, while she remained. It was but a continual capitulation of
conscience to what she dared not name.

By degrees, as she sat, Felice's mind--helped perhaps by the anticlimax
of learning that her lover was unharmed after all her fright about
him--grew wondrously strong in wise resolve. For the moment she was in
a mood, in the words of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, "to run mad with
discretion;" and was so persuaded that discretion lay in departure that
she wished to set about going that very minute. Jumping up from her
seat, she began to gather together some small personal knick-knacks
scattered about the room, to feel that preparations were really in
train.

While moving here and there she fancied that she heard a slight noise
out-of-doors, and stood still. Surely it was a tapping at the window.
A thought entered her mind, and burned her cheek. He had come to that
window before; yet was it possible that he should dare to do so now!
All the servants were in bed, and i