to throw it off, but it was like the objects in the room that had seemed almost invisible at first, but that grew every moment more distinct to her as she watched them.  She felt more and more sure that the danger was real, however the knowledge of it had come; a terrible danger, but not to herself.  It seemed strange now that she had been blind so long, and yet, how could she have suspected such a horror?  Lord Bulchester felt it, too, only that he would not allow himself to believe it.  But it was he who had brought conviction home; it would never have come, she thought, if she had not seen him yesterday.  But it had come, and it remained.  It held her like a vise, drawing her back toward it whenever she tried to escape, driving off sleep forcibly when more than once that seemed about to seize her.  What was she to do with it?  Plainly, something.  It and rest could never dwell together.  But what?  And how could she do it?  A conviction which pressed upon herself with the force of a certainty, and yet had no proofs by which to establish itself, was not an easy thing to make felt by another mind.  And when it was a conviction of danger, and that other had by nature and training a contempt of danger, the difficulties were increased.  Added to this were other difficulties which Elizabeth felt keenly; but the fear was stronger than them all.  The longer she studied the matter the more she saw that the only thing for her to do was the one thing that she shrank from most.  All the freedom left her was to find out the best way of doing it.

When the dimness of starlight began to grow into the dawn, she arose.  But she delayed at her toilet, standing so long in thought with her brush in her hand, and her dark hair sweeping over her shoulders, that it was six o’clock before she crossed the hall and knocked at her father’s door.

There was no answer.  She knocked again, with the same result, and then opening the door, found the room empty.  Mr. Royal had gone down stairs.  But it was too early for Mrs. Eveleigh, and Elizabeth might still have her talk with him without interruption.  With a mixture of relief and dread she went down the broad, low stairs and crossed the hall into the library.

It had always been her favorite room.  She had spent so many happy hours here with the books, that the room with its handsome old furniture and sunny windows was full of the memories and day dreams that her reading had conjured up.  But not only this; it was here that she had seen most of her father; they had spent hours together here, while Mrs. Eveleigh attended to her household duties, or amused herself with her friends, or retired for her nap.  And whether father and daughter talked, or sat, he with his paper or his writing, she with her book, each felt a companionship in the other.  Elizabeth often spoke her thoughts freely to any one who happened to be within hearing when the mood for speech came over her; but as to her feelings, her father understood those best.  This was partly on account of his quickness of comprehension, which supplied much that she did not utter, and partly because there came to her times when her father seemed like a second self, and silence grew unnatural.