of living within a sort of citadel.
Naturally much force has to go in keeping up the defences, but it is
better than having none to keep up."

Hadria gave a quiet smile. "There is not a method, mental or other, that
I have not tried, and tried hard. If it had not been for the sternest
self-discipline, my mind at this moment, would be so honeycombed with
small pre-occupations (pleasant and otherwise), that it would be
incapable of consecutive ideas of any kind. As it is, I feel a miserable
number of holes here"--she touched her brow--"a loss of absorbing power,
at times, and a mental slackness that is really alarming. What remains
of me has been dragged ashore as from a wreck, amidst a rush of wind and
wave. But just now, thanks greatly to your sympathy and Algitha's, I
seem restored to myself. I can never describe the rapture of that
sensation to one who has never felt himself sinking down and down into
darkness, to a dim hell, where the doom is a slow decay instead of the
fiery pains of burning."

"This is all wrong, wrong!" cried the Professor anxiously.

"Ah! but I feel now, such certainty, such courage. It seems as if Fate
were giving me one more chance. I have often run very close to making a
definite decision--to dare everything rather than await this fool's
disaster. But then comes that everlasting feminine humility, sneaking up
with its simper: 'Is not this presumptuous, selfish, mistaken, wrong?
What business have _you_, one out of so many, to break roughly through
the delicate web that has been spun for your kindly detention?' Of
course my retort is: 'What business have they to spin the web?' But one
can never get up a real sense of injured innocence. It is always the
spiders who seem injured and innocent. However, this time I am going to
try, though the heavens fall!"

A figure appeared, in the dusk, at the further end of the avenue. It
proved to be Miss Du Prel, who had come to find Hadria. Henriette had
arrived unexpectedly by the late afternoon train, and Valeria had
volunteered to announce her arrival to her sister-in-law.

"Ah!" exclaimed Hadria, "heaven helps him who helps himself! This will
fit in neatly with my plans."

CHAPTER XXX.

Valeria Du Prel, finding that Miss Temperley proposed a visit of some
length, returned to town by the early morning train.

"Valeria, do you know anyone in Paris to whom you could give me a letter
of introduction?" Hadria asked, at the last moment, when t