Her mind gave no definite shape or form to this image of herself dying. The thought of it followed so naturally from the idea of a union with the Priory-tenant, that there seemed no need to separate the two things. To marry Mr. John Goring was just a simple sentence of death. The only thing to make sure of, was that before she actually died, this precious document, liberating her friend forever, should be signed and sealed. Oddly enough she never for a moment doubted Mr. Romer’s intention of carrying out his part of the contract if she carried out hers. As he had said, the world was designed and arranged for bargains between men and women; and if her great bargain meant the putting of life itself into the scale--well! she was ready. Strangely enough, the final issue of her feverish self-communings was a sense of deep and indescribable peace. It was more of a relief to her than anyone not acquainted with the peculiar texture of a Pariah’s mind could realize, to be spared that desperate appeal to Vennie Seldom. In a dumb inarticulate way she felt that, without making such an appeal, the spirit of the Nevilton nun was supporting and strengthening her. Did Vennie know of her dilemma, she would be compelled to resort to some drastic step to stop the sacrifice, just as one would be compelled to hold out a hand of rescue to some determined suicide. But she felt in the depths of her heart that if Vennie were in her position she would make the same choice. The long afternoon was still only half over, when--comforted and at peace with herself, as a devoted patriot might be at peace, when the throw of the dice has appointed him as his country’s liberator--she rose from her recumbent position, and sitting on the edge of her bed turned over the pages of her tiny edition of St. Thomas à Kempis. It had been long since she had opened this volume. Indeed, isolated from contact with any Catholic influence except that of the philosophical Mr. Taxater, Lacrima had been recently drifting rather far away from the church of her fathers. This complete upheaval of her whole life threw her back upon her old faith. Like so many other women of suppressed romantic emotions, when the moment came for some heroic sacrifice for the sake of her friend, she at once threw into the troubled waters the consecrated oil that had anointed the half-forgotten piety of her childhood. One curious and interesting psychological fact in connection with this new trend of feeling in her, was the fact that the actual realistic horror of being, in a literal and material sense, at the mercy of Mr. John Goring never presented itself to her mind at all. Its very dreadfulness, being a thing that amounted to sheer death, blurred and softened its tangible and palpable image.