Lady Jane was far too high-bred to reject this sympathy, but it was almost more than in her valour she could bear. Her eyes filled in spite of herself. “It is only an extraordinary accident,” she said. “But Mordaunt will tell you when she comes.” She was glad to escape into the library that she might not break down. Turning round to re-enter alone that huge, cold, uninhabited place, her mind was seized with a spasm of terror. The blinds were drawn down, the fireplace was cold, it was like a room out of which the dead had been newly carried, not a place to receive a woman in the most living moment of life--on her wedding-day! She had borne herself very bravely as long as her lover was there--almost too bravely, trying to make him believe that it was nothing, that she had scarcely any feeling on the subject. But when she saw him go, the clouds and darkness closed in upon Lady Jane, her lips quivered sadly as she spoke to Mrs Brown. When she was alone, her swelling heart and throbbing forehead were relieved by a sudden passion of tears. Would it be nothing as she had made believe? or was it a parting, an ending, a severance from Reginald and hope? A black moment passed over her--blacker than anything that Winton felt, as, distracted and furious, burning with intentions of vengeance, and a sense of injury in which there was some relief from the misery of the situation, he hurried along towards the Germaines’ house. There, at least, he could plan and arrange, and talk out his fury and wretchedness. But Lady Jane had no such solace. When she had yielded to that bitter _accès_ of tears, and felt herself pass under the cloud, she had to gather herself together again all unaided, and recover her composure as best she could. That sensation of overwhelming cold which so often accompanies a mental crisis made her shiver. She drew her cloak closely round her, and went slowly up-stairs through the hollow silence of the great house, pausing now and then to take breath in her nervous exhaustion, and looking anxiously for the appearance of her father. Did he not mean to come to her at all? Lady Jane had no idea that she was going with all those hesitations and pauses straight into a prison. Such a thought had never occurred to her. She believed still in reason and loving-kindness and truth. Her father, when he saw it impossible, would after all yield, she thought. Her mother would come to succour her in this extraordinary emergency. “There is a soul of goodness in things evil,” she murmured again to herself, but not so bravely as she had said it to her lover. The house was so cold, such an echoing solitude, no living thing visible, and she alone in it, left to wear through the weary hours as she could--on her wedding-day!