All the long morning I wandered about the house, scarcely knowing what I did or whither I went. Once I found myself in the room of silence, not remembering when I had come there or for what reason. The fact, merely, was impressed upon me by a gradual change in the nature of my sensations. Something seemed to be asking a question of me which I was striving and striving to answer. It didn’t distress me at first, for a nearer misery overwhelmed everything, but by and by its insistence pierced a passage through all dull obstacles, and the something took up its abode in me and reigned and grew. I felt myself yielding, yielding; and strove now to beat off the inevitable horror of the answer that was rising in me. I did not know what it was, or the question to which it was a response--only I saw that if I yielded to it and spoke it, I should die then and there of the black terror of its revelation. I sprung to my feet with a cry, and saw, or thought I saw, Modred standing by the water wheel and beckoning to me. If I had strength to escape, it was enough for that and no more, for everything seemed to go from me till I found myself sitting at the foot of the stairs, with Jason looking oddly down upon me. “I needn’t get up,” I said. “Modred isn’t dead, after all.” I think I heard him shout out. Anyhow, I felt myself lifted up and carried somewhere and put down. If they had thought to restrain me, however, they should have managed things better; for I was up in a moment and out at the window. I had often thought one wanted only the will to forget gravity and float through the air, and here I was doing it. What a glorious sensation it was! I laughed to think how long I had remained like a reptile, bound to the plodding miserable earth, when all the time I had power to escape from myself and float on and on far away from all those heart-breaking troubles. If I only went very swiftly at first I should soon be too distant for them to track me, and then I should be free. I felt a little anxious, for there was a faint noise behind me. I strove to put on pace; if my limbs had responded to my efforts no bird could have outstripped me. But I saw with agony that the harder I fought the less way I made. I struggled and sobbed and clutched myself blindly onward, and all the time the noise behind grew deeper. If I pushed myself off with a foot to the ground I only floated a very little way now. Then I saw a railing and pulled myself along with it toilsomely, but some great pressure was in front of me and my feet slipped into holes at every step. Panting, straining, slipping, as if on blood--why! It was blood! I had to yield at last.