When this was done, it seemed as if everything possible had been done; and yet it was next to nothing. With both hands pressed to my eyes, I stood thinking as I seemed never to have thought before. Then it was that—as sudden, swift, and startling as one of those flashes which were momently illumining the outer world—an idea shot through my brain, which for an instant or two seemed to cause my heart to stand still. And yet at the first blush it was an idea that had about it something so preposterous, so ludicrous, even, that had the need been at all less imminent, I should have discarded it at once as little better than the inspiration of a mad woman. But preposterous as the idea might seem, for the life of me I could think of no other, and every minute now was invaluable. There was no time for hesitation. I must discard it or adopt it, and that without a moment’s delay. ‘I will try it; it can but fail,’ I said to myself with an inward groan. On the toilet-table was a jar of white tooth-powder, which had been replenished the previous day. I shook out a quantity of this powder, shut my eyes, and proceeded to rub it thickly over my face, arms, and hands. That done, I drew the white coverlet off the bed, and draped myself with it loosely from head to foot; then I unbound my hair, which in those days was ebon black and reached below my waist, and shook it round my face and over my shoulders in ‘most admired disorder.’ I was now ready for the rôle I had made up my mind to enact. Bessie has told me since that she thought I had taken leave of my senses. Just at the moment my toilet was completed, and as I turned and advanced towards her, another long, quivering flash lighted up the room. A low shriek burst involuntarily from my sister’s lips, and she shrank away from me as though I were something altogether uncanny. ‘O Barbara, dear, what is the matter?’ she cried. ‘Why do you frighten me so?’ ‘It is not you I want to frighten, but the men down-stairs,’ I replied. Then, in a few hurried words, I told her my plan.