which he had already found the best of all sedatives for her. She
loathed the very thought of it--could no more have touched it than if
the ivory keys had been white hot steel. She watched him from the window
while he mounted his horse, but the moment the last red gleam of Ruber
vanished, she flung her arms above her head, and with a stifled cry
threw herself on a couch, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth, and
in fierce dumb agony, tore it to shreds with hands and teeth. Presently
she rose, opened the door almost furtively, and stole softly down the
stair, looking this way and that, like one intent on some evil deed. At
the bottom she pushed a green baize-covered door, peeped into a passage,
then crept on tiptoe toward the surgery. Arrived there she darted to a
spot she knew, and stretched a trembling hand toward a bottle full of a
dark-colored liquid. As instantly she drew it back, and stood listening
with bated breath and terrified look. It _was_ a footstep approaching
the outer door of the surgery! She turned and fled from it, still
noiseless, and never stopped till she was in her own room. There she
shut and locked the door, fell on her knees by the bedside, and pressed
her face into the coverlid. She had no thought of praying. She wanted to
hide, only to hide. Neither was it from old habit she fell upon her
knees, for she had never been given to kneeling. I can not but think,
nevertheless, that there was a dumb germ of prayer at the heart of the
action--that falling upon her knees, and that hiding of her face. The
same moment something took place within her to which she could have
given no name, which she could have represented in no words, a something
which came she knew not whence, was she knew not what, and went she knew
not whither, of which indeed she would never have become aware except
for what followed, but which yet so wrought, that she rose from her
knees saying to herself, with clenched teeth and burning eyes, "I _will_
tell him."