Still it cooled the extreme hatred Caroline had nursed, and gave her a little twinge, and awakened her intelligence. Now her intelligence was truly remarkable when not blinded by passion. She was a woman with one or two other masculine traits besides her roving heart. For instance, she could sit and think hard and practically for hours together: and on these occasions her thoughts were never dreamy and vague; it was no brown study, but good hard thinking. She would knit her coal-black brows, like Lord Thurlow himself, and realize the situation, and weigh the pros and cons with a steady judicial power rarely found in her sex; and, _nota bene_, when once her mind had gone through this process, then she would act with almost monstrous resolution. She now shut herself up in her own room for some hours, and weighed the matter carefully. The conclusion she arrived at was this: that, if she stayed at Hernshaw Castle, there would be mischief; and probably she herself would be the principal sufferer to the end of the chapter, as she was now. She said to herself: "I shall go mad, or else expose myself, and be turned away with loss of character; and then what will become of me, and my child? Better lose life or reason than character. I know what I have to go through; I have left a man ere now with my heart tugging at me to stay beside him. It is a terrible wrench; and then all seems dead for a long while without _him_. But the world goes on and takes you round with it; and by and by you find there are as good fish left in the sea. I'll go, while I've sense enough left to see I must." The very next day she came to Mrs. Gaunt and said she wished to leave. "Certainly," said Mrs. Gaunt, coldly. "May I ask the reason?" "O, I have no complaint to make, ma'am, none whatever; but I am not happy here; and I wish to go when my month's up, or sooner, ma'am, if you could suit yourself." Mrs. Gaunt considered a moment: then she said, "You came all the way from Gloucestershire to me; had you not better give the place a fair trial? I have had two or three good servants that felt uncomfortable at first; but they soon found out my ways, and stayed with me till they married. As for leaving me before your month, that is out of the question." To this Ryder said not a word, but merely vented a little sigh, half dogged, half submissive; and went cat-like about, arranging her mistress's things with admirable precision and neatness. Mrs. Gaunt watched her, without seeming to do so, and observed that her discontent did not in the least affect her punctual discharge of her duties. Said Mrs. Gaunt to herself, "This servant is a treasure; she shall not go." And Ryder to herself, "Well, 't is but for a month; and then no power shall keep me here." CHAPTER XIX.