cutting her throat, or throwing herself out of the window, flashed across her mind.  “Sleep I must have—­sleep, sleep, sleep!” she muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends collected.  It was her scapular that came up under her hand, and at the sight of it, all her mad revolt was hushed, and a calm settled upon her.  “A miracle, a miracle,” she murmured, “the Virgin has done this; she interceded for me;” and at the same moment, catching sight of the chloral right under her very eyes, she could no longer doubt the miraculous interposition of the Virgin.  For how otherwise could that bottle have escaped her notice?  She had looked at the very place where it stood many times, and had not seen it; she had moved the other bottles and she had not seen it.  The Virgin had taken it away—­she was sure it was not there five minutes ago—­or else the Virgin had blinded her eyes to it.  A miracle had happened; and in a quivering peace of mind and an intense joy of the heart, she mended the strings of her broken scapular.  Then she hung it round her neck, and kneeling by the bedside, she said the prayers that it enjoined; and when she got into bed she saw a light shining in one corner of the room, and, sure that it was the Virgin who had come in person to visit her, she continued her prayers till she fell asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A knock came at her door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle had slept.  She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search, she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel uncomfortable by her remarks.  Evelyn knew it would be impossible for Merat to guess the cause of it all.  But when she hesitated about what dress she would wear, declaring against this one and that one, her choice all the time being fixed on a black crepon, Merat glanced suspiciously at her mistress; and when Evelyn put aside her rings, selecting in preference two which she did not usually wear, the maid was convinced that some disaster had happened, and was ready to conclude that Ulick Dean was the cause of these sleepless nights.

Evelyn had chosen this dress because she was going to St. Joseph’s or because she supposed she was going there.  It did not seem to her that she could confess to anyone but Monsignor.  But why he? one priest would do as well as another.  She was too tired to think.

Her brain was like one of those autumn days when clouds hang low, and a dimness broods between sky and earth.  True that there were the events of last night—­her search for the chloral, the finding of her scapular, her belief in a special interposition of Providence, and then her resolution to go to confession.  It was all there; she knew it all, but did not want to think about it.  She had been thinking for a week, and this was the first respite she had had from thought, and she wished this stupor of brain to continue till four o’clock.  That was the time she would have to be at St. Joseph’s.  He was generally there at that time.