Solitude was abhorrent to her; yet she did not go down. Difficulties had to be faced. At any moment they might assume an acute form, and it was needful to consider how she should meet the danger. She lived on the edge of a volcano. After years of immunity from fear, of running away from conscience, of shutting her eyes to realities, she found herself in a net of her own weaving. Less and less, as weeks went by, could she see her way out. Knot after knot was being tied, so it seemed to her, by a relentless hand. More truly, she had herself fastened those knots in the past; and the net had ever since imprisoned her, though so loosely that she could ignore its existence. Now that unseen hand was tightening it. She could not escape. No loophole presented itself. One mode she did know—the mode of the "Gordian knot." But from that she shrank with loathing. "I would sooner die!" she said, setting her teeth; and she failed to see, as in Switzerland she had seen, what such a death must mean. She clenched her hand. "He must not come! He shall not come!" A letter had arrived that afternoon, not in the ordinary way, but forwarded under cover from her London bankers, being marked "Immediate." It was written by one whom she ought to have welcomed to Castle Hill; whom, for no fault of his own, she was determined to keep away. The writer, in a tone of grave remonstrance, argued against this resolve, trying to make it clear that she wronged herself and him. "He shall 'not' come!" she repeated aloud, with energy. She turned from the window, through which blew a cold breeze. There were lights on the table; and she drew from her pocket two envelopes. With impatient fingers she took out a sheet, found it to be the one she did not want, and drew forth the other, which she read, not for the second or third time. "He ought to be sure that I would not act so without reason. He ought to understand. My motives are no concern of his! I told him it had to be; and that should be enough. After all these years, what can it signify? At any cost, stay away he 'must!'" Standing before the mirror, in her brocaded silk, she knew what his arrival on the scene would mean. She saw him come in; pictured the faces around; heard the inevitable exclamations; realised to the tips of her fingers what would be felt, thought, uttered; and with that vision sick terror seized her. She leant against the table, on the verge of fainting. "I could not bear it! I would rather die. The very idea is maddening. 'Right.' But right or wrong I could not! There are things too impossible. And after all—that 'one' false step should bring me to this! One step, which seemed at the time nothing! To have one's life ruined! It would be cruel." She put up both hands to her throat, where a lump seemed to rise. If she sometimes pretended to be ill, she also suffered much from overwrought nerves. Crimson flushed her face, fading into pallor, and noises sang in her ears.