heard so often since he came. The fear of Vanne Castine, the memories of
the wild, half animal-like love she had had for him in the old days, the
excitement of the new events which had come into her life; these kept her
awake, and she tossed and turned in feverish unrest. All that had
happened since Ferrol had arrived, every word that he had spoken, every
motion that he had made, every look of his face, she recalled vividly.
All that he was, which was different from the people she had known, she
magnified, so that to her he had a distant, overwhelming sort of
grandeur. She beat the bedclothes in her restlessness. Suddenly she sat
up straight in bed.

"Oh, if I hadn't been a Lavilette! If I'd only been born and brought up
with the sort of people he comes from, I'd not have been ashamed of
myself or him of me."

The plush bodice she had worn that day danced before her eyes. She knew
how horribly ugly it was. Her fingers ran over the patchwork quilt on
her bed; and although she could not see it, she loathed it, because she
knew it was a painful mess of colours. With a little touch of dramatic
extravagance, she leaned over and down, and drew her fingers
contemptuously along the rag-carpet on the floor. Then she cried a
little hysterically:

"He never saw anything like that before. How he must laugh as he sits
there in that room!"

As if in reply, the hacking cough came faintly through the time-worn
floor.

"That cough's going to kill him, to kill him," she said.