On returning to her own room from that interview with Leon, Edith sat for a long time involved in thought. It was evident to her now that her situation was one full of frightful peril. The departure of Wiggins, of which she was aware, seemed to afford additional danger. Between him and Leon there had been what seemed to her at least the affectation of dislike or disagreement, but now that he was gone there remained no one who would even pretend to interpose between herself and her enemy. Even if Mrs. Dunbar had been capable of assisting her against Leon, Edith knew that no reliance could be placed upon her, for she had openly manifested a strong regard for him. This departure of Wiggins, which thus seemed to make her present position more perilous, seemed also to Edith to afford her a better opportunity than any she had known since her arrival of putting into execution her long-meditated project of flight. True, there was still the same difficulty which had been suggested once before--the want of money--but Edith was now indifferent to this. The one thing necessary was to escape from her new perils. If she could but get out of the Dalton grounds, she hoped to find some lawyer who might take up her cause, and allow her enough to supply her modest wants until that cause should be decided. But liberty was the one thought that eclipsed all others in her estimation; and if she could but once effect her escape from this horrible place, it seemed to her that all other things would be easy. The present appeared to be beyond all others the fitting time, for Wiggins was away, and it seemed to her that in his absence the watch over her would probably be relaxed. Her long illness would of itself have thrown them to some extent off their guard, and render her purpose unsuspected. By this time it would doubtless be forgotten that she had once left the Hall by night, and it was not likely that any precaution would be taken against a second flight on the part of one so weak as she was supposed to be. A few days before she had made a stealthy visit to that door, and had found, to her great relief, that no additional fastenings had been put there. Her illness had evidently rendered any such precaution unnecessary for the time; and since her recovery Wiggins had no doubt been too much occupied with other things to think of this.