was powerless to repress one in favour of the other.
Both struggled for mastery and for the moment without disturbing the
equipoise. On the side of reason she knew very well she was looking at
and talking to her dear, kind father, and that the young man sitting
next him was John Norton, the son of her dear friend, Mrs Norton; she
knew he was the young man who loved her, and whom she was going to
marry, marry, marry. On the other side she saw that her father's kind
benign countenance was not a real face, but a mask which he wore over
another face, and which, should the mask slip--and she prayed that it
might not--would prove as horrible and revolting as--

But the mask John wore was as nothing, it was the veriest make believe.
And she could not but doubt now but that the face she had known him so
long by was a fictitious face, and as the hallucination strengthened,
she saw his large mild eyes grow small, and that vague dreamy look
turn to the dull liquorish look, the chin came forward, the brows
contracted ... the large sinewy hands were, oh, so like! Then reason
asserted itself; the vision vanished, and she saw John Norton as she
had always seen him.

But was she sure that she did? Yes, yes--she must not give way. But her
head seemed to be growing lighter, and she did not appear to be able to
judge things exactly as she should; a sort of new world seemed to be
slipping like a painted veil between her and the old. She must resist.

John and Mr Hare looked at her.

John at length rose, and advancing to her, said, "My dear Kitty, I am
afraid you are not well...."

She strove to allow him to take her hand, but she could not overcome the
instinctive feeling which, against her will, caused her to shrink from
him.

"Oh, don't come near me, I cannot bear it!" she cried, "don't come near
me, I beg of you."

More than this she could not do, and giving way utterly, she shrieked
and rushed from the room. She rushed upstairs. She stood in the middle
of the floor listening to the silence, her thoughts falling about her
like shaken leaves. It was as if a thunderbolt had destroyed the world,
and left her alone in a desert. The furniture of the room, the bed, the
chairs, the books she loved, seemed to have become as grains of sand,
and she forgot all connection between them and herself. She pressed her
hands to her forehead, and strove to separate the horror that crowded
upon her. But all was now one horror--the lonely hills wer