on and horror
that raged within her. The homeliness of the teacups and the plates, the
tin bath, painted yellow and white, so grotesque and so trim.

But not its water nor even the waves of the great sea would wash away
remembrance. She pressed her face against the pane. The wide sea, so
peaceful, so serene! Oblivion, oblivion, O for the waters of oblivion!

Then for an hour she almost forgot; sometimes she listened, and the
shrill singing of the canary was mixed with thoughts of her dead
brothers and sisters, of her mother. She was waked from her reveries by
the farm bell ringing the labourers' dinner hour.

Night had been fearsome with darkness and dreams, but the genial
sunlight and the continuous externality of the daytime acted on her
mind, and turned vague thoughts, as it were, into sentences, printed in
clear type. She often thought she was dead, and she favoured this idea,
but she was never wholly dead. She was a lost soul wandering on those
desolate hills, the gloom descending, and Brighton and Southwick and
Shoreham and Worthing gleaming along the sea banks of a purple sea.
There were phantoms--there were two phantoms. One turned to reality, and
she walked by her lover's side, talking of Italy. Then he disappeared,
and she shrank from the horrible tramp; then both men grew confused in
her mind, and in despair she threw herself on her bed. Raising her eyes
she caught sight of her prayer-book, but she turned from it moaning, for
her misery was too deep for prayer.

The lunch bell rang. She listened to the footsteps on the staircase; she
begged to be excused, and she refused to open the door.

The day grew into afternoon. She awoke from a dreamless sleep of about
an hour, and still under its soothing influence, she pinned up her
hair, settled the ribbons of her dressing gown, and went downstairs. She
found her father and John in the drawing-room.

"Oh, here is Kitty!" they exclaimed.

"But what is the matter, dear? Why are you not dressed?" said Mr Hare.
"But what is the matter.... Are you ill?" said John, and he extended his
hand.

"No, no, 'tis nothing," she replied, and avoiding the outstretched hand
with a shudder, she took the seat furthest away from her father and
lover.

They looked at her in amazement, and she at them in fear and trembling.
She was conscious of two very distinct sensations--one the result of
reason, the other of madness. She was not ignorant of the causes of
each, although she