resting her elbows on the table, looked closer
and closer at the reflection of herself, until her breath began to dim
the glass. "I can twist any man alive round my finger," she thought,
with a smile of superb triumph, "as long as I keep my looks! If that
contemptible wretch saw me now--" She shrank from following that thought
to its end, with a sudden horror of herself: she drew back from the
glass, shuddering, and put her hands over her face. "Oh, Frank!" she
murmured, "but for you, what a wretch I might be!" Her eager fingers
snatched the little white silk bag from its hiding-place in her bosom;
her lips devoured it with silent kisses. "My darling! my angel! Oh,
Frank, how I love you!" The tears gushed into her eyes. She passionately
dried them, restored the bag to its place, and turned her back on the
looking-glass. "No more of myself," she thought; "no more of my mad,
miserable self for to-day!"

Shrinking from all further contemplation of her next step in
advance--shrinking from the fast-darkening future, with which Noel
Vanstone was now associated in her inmost thoughts--she looked
impatiently about the room for some homely occupation which might take
her out of herself. The disguise which she had flung down between the
wall and the bed recurred to her memory. It was impossible to leave it
there. Mrs. Wragge (now occupied in sorting her parcels) might weary
of her employment, might come in again at a moment's notice, might pass
near the bed, and see the gray cloak. What was to be done?

Her first thought was to put the disguise back in her trunk. But after
what had happened, there was danger in trusting it so near to herself
while she and Mrs. Wragge were together under the same roof. She
resolved to be rid of it that evening, and boldly determined on sending
it back to Birmingham. Her bonnet-box fitted into her trunk. She took
the box out, thrust in the wig and cloak, and remorselessly flattened
down the bonnet at the top. The gown (which she had not yet taken off)
was her own; Mrs. Wragge had been accustomed to see her in it--there
was no need to send the gown back. Before closing the box, she hastily
traced these lines on a sheet of paper: "I took the inclosed things away
by mistake. Please keep them for me, with the rest of my luggage in your
possession, until you hear from me again." Putting the paper on the top
of the bonnet, she directed the box to Captain Wragge at Birmingham,
took it downstairs immediat