Though dreams visited the worn-out traveller, her slumbers were almost as profound as if she had really passed away. Once she awoke in the still night; the moon streamed full into the room; there was a faint sound of flowing water. Where was she? Her drowsy brain failed to recall the great events of yesterday. Suddenly a strange, weird sound pierced the silence, the wild, horrible howl of a pack of hunting jackals as they swept across the plain beyond the river, and for a frantic moment the wretched girl believed herself to be listening, in some dim region, to the agonised wailing of lost souls. But no; it was only a hideous nightmare! She turned on her side with a sigh of relief, and again relapsed into slumber. In the morning when Verona opened her eyes, it was to gaze vacantly about her. She was at a loss to remember how she came to be lying in this great bare room. Where was she? Was she in Spain, or some out-of-the-way French town? She strove to summon her scattered thoughts, and all too soon they came trooping back and assured her that she was at last at home--yes, in her real home, among her own people! She was sensible of a feeling of repulsion and absolute despair, and yet another self--which must have been her original baby self--cried shame on her for her hard heart and unnatural, wicked pride. Why should she be proud? She was nothing more nor less than a well-educated half-caste, who had been foolishly removed from her proper sphere, her own particular class. Her father--oh! why had he married a woman of such a race? Now, she understood his constrained manner, his ashamed silence and his downcast air, why he seemed to shun his former associates and to withdraw from society like some social outlaw. And she, who had never had one hint of her own origin, had acquired the ideas, refinements and prejudices of a high-bred English girl. What was to become of her? She sat up in bed, holding her hands to her throbbing head, and endeavoured to individualise her relations. Her father--the broken-down gentleman, lethargic and dumb; her mother--she shrank from the subject as a flame; her sisters--uneducated, emotional, shrill; given to cheap scents and greasy sweetmeats; her grandmother--but one degree above the ayah; and her own good looks complacently attributed to an ancestress, a Temple girl who danced before the gods! It all sounded like an Opéra Bouffe, a transformation scene of wild, topsy-turvy comedy, instead of which it was the sharp, agonising truth; no burlesque, but a heart-breaking tragedy--the tragedy of her life. How was she to endure this existence? What could she do? Where could she go? Where hide herself? For the first time in her existence, a longing for death surprised her.