"She admits that when she went away, unknown to her relatives, she did so with the purpose of going to Parksides and appealing to her father to give her a sum of money which would extricate the Lethbridges from their difficulties. 'Had I told them what was in my mind,' she says, 'they would have prevented me from leaving them, having no hope that my errand would be successful. But I had thought of a plan by which I could induce my father to comply with my request. I did not dare to mention this plan to my aunt, because it would only have strengthened her opposition to my project.' She thus explains the nature of this plan: Between her and her father were two causes of disagreement. The first was her intimacy with the Lethbridges. He disapproved of it, and wished her to discontinue her visits, and to have nothing more to do with them. To this she was now ready to agree if he would advance her the money she asked for. 'I could not promise to forget them,' she says; 'that would have been impossible--my love for them was so great, and also my gratitude for the kindness and affection they showed me from the time my mother died. But I would have borne my suffering in secret, and would never have spoken of it reproachfully to my father. I should have been only too thankful if he would have assisted me to repay them, in some small measure, for all their wonderful kindness to me. They have made great sacrifices for me. Should I hesitate to make a sacrifice for them in return? It was only my own happiness that was at stake, and perhaps death would have soon come to me to put an end to my misery. There was a time when I used to pray for death.' This, however, was not the only sacrifice she avers she was ready to make; there was another of an infinitely graver nature. Her father wished her to marry a man she abhorred. She had shrunk in horror from the proposal, but she was ready to submit to it now. She would humble herself to her father's will. Her father had written these words to her, 'When you are prepared to obey me in the one wish of my life, you can come to me; not until then.' Upon these words she was prepared to act. She would go to him and say that she was ready to obey him if he would assist her in the way she wished. Animated by this resolve--which, if it were the truth, would have been most noble and heroic--she took the last train to Beddington, and arrived at Parksides late in the night. She did not take a return ticket, not having sufficient money to pay for it. She cannot fix the hour of her arrival, nor indeed has she anything to say as to time. It may have been midnight, it may have been earlier or later--her mind is a blank upon this. The night, she says, was dark, and the house itself was in darkness; she saw no one moving, inside or out. She was afraid to knock, because her summons would have brought Mrs. Pamflett down, and she feared that the house-keeper, who hated her, would have driven her