But, on the third
evening, she disrobed. This was habit reasserting itself. She did
it unconsciously, only remembering as she crept, shuddering, between
the sheets, that for the two previous nights she had not gone to bed
at all.
The toppling fall of reason would soon have ended it; that merciful
potion of magic which can bring a torturing misery in the guise of
a quaint conceit to a mind made simple as a little child's. Another
day or so, and the frightened agony that glittered in her
eyes--fusing slowly towards the last great conflagration--would
have burnt up in the sudden panic-flare as the reason guttered out,
then smouldered down into that pitiable lightless flickering where
all glimmer of intelligence is dead.
Inevitably this must have followed, had not Janet visited her late
in the evening of the fourth day. Two days before, she had written
saying that she would come if Traill were not likely to be there.
Her note finished abruptly, characteristic of all her letters.
"If I don't hear from you to the contrary," it concluded, "I shall
arrive."
She heard nothing to the contrary. The letter had lain, since its
arrival, in the box downstairs.
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