So her riches were few. She could almost number them as she sat upon her bed, reflecting upon this astounding encounter, the threat of it, and its just consequences. When she left Derbyshire she had no thought of discovery, nor imagined it to be possible. Not a soul knew her by sight, she said. She had spent her days in a convent in France, and after that as a very prisoner in her father's house. Why, then, should she fear recognition? None the less did recognition stand upon the threshold. This foreigner she believed to be already in possession of her story. How he had gained knowledge of it, and what use he would make of it, she felt absolutely unable to say. Sufficient that a malign destiny had brought her face to face and called her to decide instantly as difficult an issue as escapade ever put before a woman. "He knows my name; he knows my father," she argued; "if he does not come to our house, he has some good reason for not doing so. In any case, I must not stop here. Oh, my dear Mr. Izard, what will you say to-night? And poor dear Di Vernon, poor dear Di Vernon, whoever will take care of her?" She laughed aloud at her own thoughts, and, jumping up impulsively, she gathered her things together as though for a journey, though she had not the remotest idea whither she would go or how she would act. A church clock striking the hour of seven reminded her that the hours were brief and that she must make the best use of them. Had she been a man she might have remembered that if this intruder knew her father's name, he would very quickly discover her father's house, his rank, and the story of his life. But she was not even a woman, scarcely more than a school-girl, in fact, and terror of the present became an immediate impulse without regard to the future. She must flee the house and the mystery without an instant's loss of time. Nothing else must count against the prudence of this course. All the little things she had collected in London, the clothes she had bought there, these must be abandoned. Etta indeed, carried nothing but her light dust-cloak and her purse when she left the house at half-past seven. "I must write to dear old Mrs. Wegg and make her a present," she said; "she can send my things to St. Pancras Station to be called for. If I don't go to the theatre, Mary Jay will play my part. Perhaps the poor girl will make her fortune. It's an ill wind ... no, a horrid wind, and, oh, I do wish it would blow me home again!"