Since then she had, however, insisted on keeping herself, but now that she came to think it out, it did not seem that she had done much more than pay her dressmaker's bills. She grew alarmed at the amount of her debt, which seemed in her excited imagination so large that all her savings, amounting to about six or seven thousand pounds, would not suffice to pay it off. Most of her jewellery had been given to her by Owen; there was the furniture, the pictures and the china in Park Lane! She would have to return all these, and the horses, too, if she wished to pay everything, and the net result would be that she would mortally offend the man who had done everything for her. She knew he would not forgive her if she sent back the presents he had made her, nor could she blame him, and she decided that such complete restitution was impossible. But, for all she knew, Monsignor might insist upon it. If he did? She felt that she would go mad if she did not put aside these scruples, which she knew to be in a measure fictitious, but which she was nevertheless unable to shake off. And she could not help thinking, though she knew that such thoughts were both foolish and unjust, that Owen had purposely contrived this thraldom. Then there was only one thing for her to do, to go to Paris after Ulick.... A moment after there came a sinking feeling. She knew that she could not. But what was she to do? All this uncertainty was loosening her brain.... She might go to Monsignor and lay the whole matter before him and take his advice. But she knew if she went to him she must confess. Better that, she thought, than that the intolerable present should endure. Mental depression and sleepless nights had produced nervous pains in her neck and arms. She could hardly drag herself along for very weariness. The very substance of her being seemed to waste away; that amount of unconsciousness without which life is an agony had been abstracted, leaving nothing but a fierce mentality. She slept a little after dinner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued, tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of "Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired, she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being. CHAPTER THIRTY