She went up to the empty drawing-room, with the soft illumination of many lights, which was habitual there, which lay all decorated and bright, sweet with spring flowers, full of pictures and ornaments, like a deserted palace, and she felt the silence and beauty of it to be dreary and terrible. It was like a desert to her, or rather like a prison, in which she must stay and wait and listen, and, whatever might come, do nothing to hinder it. What could she do? A girl could not go out into those haunts, where Claude Ramsay, though he was so delicate, could go; she could not put herself forward, and warn a man, who would think he knew much better than she could do. She sat down and tried to read, and then got up, and glided about from one table to another, from one picture to another, looking vaguely at a score of things without seeing them. Then she stole within the shadow of the curtain, and looked out at the carriages which went and came, now and then drawing up at adjacent doors. It made her heart beat to see them approaching, to think that perhaps they were coming here--her mother perhaps; perhaps Sir Thomas; perhaps Markham. Was it possible that this night, of all others--this night, when her heart seemed to appeal to earth and heaven for some one to help her--nobody would come? It was Frances’ first experience of these vigils, which to some women fill up so much of life. There had never been any anxiety at Bordighera, any disturbing influence. She had always known where to find her father, who could solve every problem and chase away every difficulty. Would he, she wondered, be able to do so now? Would he, if he were here, go out for her, and find George Gaunt, and deliver him from his pursuers? But Frances could not say to herself that he would have done so. He was not fond of disturbing himself. He would have said, “It is not my business;” he would have refused to interfere, as Claude did. And what could she do, a girl, by herself? Lady Markham had been very anxious to keep him out of harm’s way; but she had said plainly that she would not forsake her own son in order to save the son of another woman. Frances was wandering painfully through labyrinths of such thoughts, racking her brain with vain questions as to what it was possible to do, when Markham’s hansom, stopping with a sudden clang at the door, drove her thoughts away, or at least made a break in them, and replaced, by a nervous tremor of excitement and alarm, the pangs of anxious expectation and suspense. She would rather not have seen Markham at that moment. She was fond of her brother. It grieved her to hear even Lady Markham speak of him in questionable terms: all the natural prejudices of affectionate youth were enlisted on his side; but, for the first time, she felt that she had no confidence in Markham, and wished that it had been any one but he.