Thinking, is too good a name to give to what for some time went on in Rotha's mind. She was rather looking at the procession of images which passion called up and sent succeeding one another through the chambers of her brain. It was a very dreary time with the girl. Her aunt's treachery, her cousin's coldness, Mr. Digby's pitiless desertion, her lonely, lonely place in the world, her unendurable dependence on people that did not love her; for just now her dependence on Mr. Digby had failed; it all rushed through and through Rotha's head, for all the world like the changing images in a kaleidoscope, which are but new combinations, eternally renewed, of the same changeless elements. At first they went through Rotha's head in a kind of storm; gradually, for very weariness, the storm laid itself, and cold reality and sober reason had the field. But what could reason do with the reality? In other words, what step was now to take? What was to be done? Rotha could not see. She was at present at open war with her aunt. Yes, she allowed, that had not been exactly prudent; but it would have had to come, sooner or later. She could not live permanently on false social grounds; as well break through them at once. But what now? What ground did she expect to stand and move on now? She could not leave her aunt's house, for she had no other home to go to. How was she to stay in it, if she made no apology or submission? And I cannot do that, said the girl to herself. Apology indeed! It is she who ought to humble herself to me, for it is she who has wronged me, bitterly, meanly. Passion renewed the storm, for a little while. But by degrees Rotha came to be simply cold and tired and miserable. What to do she did not know. Nobody was at home to luncheon. She knew this, and got some refreshment from Lesbia, and also warmed herself through at the dressing-room fire. But when the door bell announced the return of her aunt and cousin, she sped away up stairs again and wrapped herself in her coverlet, and waited. She waited till it grew dark. She was not called to dinner, and saw that she would not be. Rotha fed upon indignation, which furnished her a warm meal; and then somebody knocked softly at her door. Lesbia had brought a plate with some cold viands. "I'll fetch it agin by and by," she whispered. "I'm allays agin seein' folks starve. What's the matter, Miss Rotha?" Lesbia had heard one side down stairs, and impartially was willing now to hear the other. Rotha's natural dignity however never sought such solace of her troubles. "Thank you, Lesbia," she simply said. "My aunt is vexed with me." "She's vexed worse'n ever I seen her. What you gone and done, Miss Rotha?" "It can't be helped," said Rotha. "She and I do not think alike."