inner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw
another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued,
tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence
it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of
sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be
useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of
"Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it
fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired,
she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw
her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the
weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her
in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect
in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being.

CHAPTER THIRTY

One night it occurred to her that she might ring for Merat and send her
to the chemist's for a sleeping draught. But it was four o'clock in the
morning, and she did not like to impose such a task on her maid.
Moreover, she might get to sleep a little later on, so she wrote on a
piece of paper that Merat was not to come to her room until she rang for
her, and she lay down and folded her arms, and once more began to count
the sheep through the gate. But that night sleep seemed further than
ever from her eyes, and at eight she was obliged to ring. "Merat, I have
not closed my eyes all night."

"Mademoiselle ought to have a sleeping draught."

"Yes, I'll take one to-night Get me some tea. Another night like this
will drive me mad."

Late in the afternoon she slept for an hour in an armchair, and, a
little rested, went to walk in the park. She was not feeling so dazed;
her brain was not so light, and the sense of whiteness was gone; the
pains in the neck and arms too had died down; they were now like a dim
suggestion, a memory. But the greatest relief of all was that she was
not thinking, conscience was quiescent and in the calm of the evening
and the gentleness of the light, life seemed easier to bear. If she
could only get a night's sleep! Now she did not know which was the
worst--the reality, the memory, or the anticipation of a sleepless
night. She had wandered round the park by the Marble Arch, and had
continued her walk through Kensington Gardens, and sitting on the
hillside by the Long Water, with the bridge on her left ha