“Very likely.  If not to-night, he will to-morrow.  Will Mr. Quarrier pay him again, do you think?” She put the question in a tone which to Lilian sounded strange, all but hostile.

“I can’t say,” was the weary, distracted answer.

“Oh, I am sorry for you, Lilian!” pursued the other, in agitation, though again her voice was curiously harsh.  “You will reproach yourself so if his life’s purpose is frustrated!  But remember, it’s not your fault.  It was he who took the responsibility from the first.  It was he who chose to brave this possible danger.  If the worst comes, you must strengthen yourself.”

Lilian sank upon a chair, and leaned forward with stupefied gaze at the speaker.

“The danger is,” pursued Mrs. Wade, in lower tones, “that he may be unjust—­feel unjustly—­as men are wont to.  You—­in spite of himself, he may feel that you have been the cause of his failure.  You must be prepared for that; I tell it you in all kindness.  If he again consents to pay Northway, he will be in constant fear.  The sense of servitude will grow intolerable—­embarrassing all he tries to do—­all his public and private life.  In that case, too, he must sometimes think of you as in the way of his ambition.  A most difficult task is before you—­a duty that will tax all your powers.  You will be equal to it, I have no doubt.  Just now you see everything darkly and hopelessly, but that’s because your health has suffered of late.”

“Perhaps this very night,” said Lilian, without looking at her companion, “he will tell people.”

“He is more likely to succeed in getting money, and then he will keep the threat held over you.  He seems to have come at this moment just because he knows that your fear of him will be keenest now.  That will always he his aim—­to appear with his threats just when a disclosure would be hardest to bear.  But I suppose Mr. Quarrier will rather give up everything than submit to this.  Oh, the pity! the pity!”

Lilian let her hands fall and sat staring before her.

She felt as though cast out into a terrible solitude.  Mrs. Wade’s voice came from a distance; and it was not a voice of true sympathy, but of veiled upbraiding.  Unspeakably remote was the image of the man she loved, and he moved still away from her.  A cloud of pain fell between her and all the kindly world.

In these nights of sleepless misery she had thought of her old home.  The relatives from whom she was for ever parted—­her sister, her kind old aunt—­looked at her with reproachful eyes; and now, in anguish which bordered upon delirium, it was they alone who seemed real to her; all her recent life had become a vague suffering, a confused consciousness of desire and terror.  Her childhood returned; she saw her parents and heard them talk.  A longing for the peace and love of those dead days rent her heart.

She could neither speak nor move.  Torture born in the brain throbbed through every part of her body.  But worse was that ghastly sense of utter loneliness, of being forsaken by human sympathy.  The cloud about her thickened; it muffled light and sound, and began to obscure even her memories.