Great and many were my musings what steps I ought to take; or, indeed, whether I ought to take any steps in the strange dilemma I was in. I considered of it till my head ached. What if Sarah’s mind were possibly just at that delicate point when means of cure might be effectual? but how could _I_ bring her to any means of cure? There have been many miserable stories told about false imputations of insanity and dreadful cruelties and injustice following, but I almost think there might be as many and as sad on the other side, about friends watching in agony, neither able nor willing to take any steps until it was too late, far too late, for any good. This was the situation I felt myself in; no matter whether I was right or wrong in my opinion, this was how I felt myself. I suppose nobody can think of madness appearing beside them in the person of their nearest companion, without a dreadful thrill and terror at their heart; but at the same time I felt that, however inevitable this might be, I must first come to it unmistakably. I must first see it, hear it, beyond all possibility of doubt, before I ventured to whisper it even to the secret ear of a physician. All this floated through my mind with that dreadful faculty of jumping at conclusions that imagination always has. Did ever anybody meet with any great misfortune, which has been hanging some time over them, without going through it a thousand times before the blow really fell, and the dreadful repetition was done away with once and for ever? How many times over and over, sleeping and waking, does the death-bed watcher go through the parting that approaches before it really comes? Dying itself, I think,--one naturally thinks what kind of a process that is, as one comes near the appointed natural period of its coming,--dying itself must be rehearsed so often, that its coming at last is a real relief to the real actor. Not only does what is real go through a hundred performances in one’s imagination, but many a scene appals us that, thank heaven, we are never condemned to go through with. I could not see before me what was to happen, nor into Sarah’s mind to know what was astir there; but I tortured myself all the same, gathering all the proofs of this new dismal light thrown upon her, in my mind. All insane people make up a persecutor or pursuer for themselves. Poor Sarah had found hers in the strange face,--it was so unusual in our quiet roads to see a strange face!--which she met all at once and without warning, on the quiet road.