But though she indignantly denied the fact as being a very discreditable one, she looked pale, and the laughing eyes had lost something of their brightness. She started at every sound; and once, when a violent peal from the bell sounded through the house, Lady Linleigh saw that she dropped the book she was holding. Much did the countess wonder what had affected her fair young daughter. Yet it was such a trifle, such a foolish dream that had caused her to stop for one moment in her career of triumph, and look at the possible dangers in store for her. She dreamed that she was walking in a pretty wood near Florence, when suddenly the tall trees began to assume the most grotesque shapes; huge branches became long arms, all trying to grasp her, leaves became fingers trying to detain her. No sooner had she eluded the clutch of one giant arm than another was stretched out toward her. In vain she tried to elude them. Then she heard her own name called out in a voice which, with a strange thrill of fear, she recognized as Lord Vivianne's. Then she saw him standing underneath one of the giant arms, and he held a long, shining knife in his hands. "I have been looking for you for some time," he said; "now that I have found you, I mean to kill you, because you were faithless to me." She tried to escape, but the giant arms clutched her, the fingers clasped round her, the shining steel flashed before her eyes, and she awoke--awoke to feel such fear as she had never before known. She took herself to task for it. Suppose that the worst should come, that she had to meet him again! Was it likely that in this altered position he would know her? It was most unlikely, most improbable. Suppose that she met him in a ball-room--where it was most probable they would meet--and they were introduced to each other as strangers! Well, even then, she had nerve enough, courage enough, to look at him and fail to recognize him. She would, at the worst, solemnly swear that he was mistaken, and he--well, for his own sake, it was most improbable that he would dare to mention the terms upon which they had lived. Nothing but shame and dislike of all good people could follow such an avowal on his part. It would do him ten thousand times more harm than good. "So I need not fear," she said to herself. "I have no reason to be afraid, even if I should meet him face to face to-day!" She did not feel the least regret or remorse for her sin. For her lost innocence, her fair fame, her soul's welfare, she cared but little--yet she would have given much if she had avoided this wrong, not because it was wrong, but because the penalty of it might be unpleasant. In the bright heaven of her full content it was the one dark cloud; to the full glory of her most brilliant triumph it was the one drawback.