Her mind was relieved from the stress of conflict; despair had given place to something that made her laugh at all the old scruples. So far from dreading the judgments that would follow her disappearance, she felt a pride in evil repute. Let them talk of her! If she dared everything, it would be well understood that she had not done so without a prospect worthy of herself. If she broke away from the obligations of a life that could never be other than poor and commonplace, those who knew her would estimate the compensation she had found. Sidney Kirkwood was aware of her ambitions; for his own sake he had hoped to keep her on the low level to which she was born; now let him recognise his folly! Some day she would present herself before him:—‘Very sorry that I could not oblige you, my dear sir, but you see that my lot was to be rather different from that you kindly planned for me.’ Let them gossip and envy! It was a strange night that followed. Between one and two o’clock the heavens began to be over-flashed with summer lightning; there was no thunder, no rain. The blue gleams kept illuminating the room for more than an hour. Clara could not lie in bed. The activity of her brain became all but delirium; along her nerves, through all the courses of her blood, seemed to run fires which excited her with an indescribable mingling of delight and torment. She walked to and fro, often speaking aloud, throwing up her arms. She leaned from the open window and let the lightning play freely upon her face: she fancied it had the effect of restoring her wasted health. Whatever the cause, she felt stronger and more free from pain than for many months. At dawn she slept. The striking of a church-clock woke her at nine, giving her just time to dress with care and set forth to keep her appointment. CHAPTER XI A DISAPPOINTMENT On ordinary Sundays the Byasses breakfasted at ten o’clock; this morning the meal was ready at eight, and Bessie’s boisterous spirits declared the exception to be of joyous significance. Finding that Samuel’s repeated promises to rise were the merest evasion, she rushed into the room where he lay fly-fretted, dragged the pillows from under his tousled head, and so belaboured him in schoolboy fashion that he had no choice but to leap towards his garments. In five minutes he roared down the kitchen stairs for shaving-water, and in five minutes more was seated in his shirt-sleeves, consuming fried bacon with prodigious appetite. Bessie had the twofold occupation of waiting upon him and finishing the toilet of the baby; she talked incessantly and laughed with an echoing shrillness which would have given a headache for the rest of the day to any one of average nervous sensibility.