For a strange thing had come to Susan Riley. It will be remembered how she explained to Mary, in the course of a conversation, that the experience of all Nihilists was as follows: They suffered from the horrors _before_ committing the deed. They were wont to fear that, as soon as their hands were red with a first murder, some frightful bogie, some maddening remorse, worse than anything imaginable before, would leap up and seize them; but as soon as they _had_ committed the deed, they were so agreeably surprised to find that this dreaded bogie did not appear, that a delightful reaction would at once set in, they became mad with joy. "As soon as you have killed your first baby," she told Mary, "your horrors will all go. You will experience immediate relief. It's like having a tooth out." But now Susan, in her own person, found this process altogether reversed. She had felt no compunction, no horror, before the deed. She had murdered her lover, the barrister, with a light heart. But, lo! now that she _had_ done the deed, she was haunted by the terror--the avenging Furies never left her. She was consumed by a perpetual and awful fear. She would start out of her disturbed sleep, twenty times in a night, to see distinctly before her the disfigured face of her victim, looking into her very soul, even as he had looked that last time in the hospital ward, with his one unbandaged eye. In her first panic she thought of leaving the country and concealing herself in some foreign town. But she soon perceived that this would be a most imprudent step. The chances were, after all, that her crime would not come to light. Even if Mary or the barrister did accuse her, it would be better for her to remain at home and brazen it out than to invite suspicion by flight. Besides, she remembered that though it might be comparatively easy to hide herself from the justice of the law with its clumsy machinery, it would be altogether impossible to escape from the vengeance of the secret societies. She knew that, if Mary accused her of murdering the barrister--if the Sisters discovered that she had made use of the secret of the society to satisfy her own private malice--her fate was sealed. She knew how the Nihilist societies all over the world were connected with each other. She knew that wherever she might hide herself, she would be hunted down and executed by their agents: first, because death was the punishment always awarded to one who prostituted the methods of the societies to work his own private ends; and secondly, because the Sisterhood would decree her removal in their own defence, so as to anticipate the law, and obviate all chance of her betraying them, did the police succeed in tracking and arresting her. She saw clearly that flight was worse than useless, so remained where she was. Dr. Duncan had promised to write to her every day and report the progress of Mary's illness.