The one intolerable condition, the condition she had deprecated above all others, was that of Fitzpiers's reinstatement there.

"Oh, I won't, I won't see him," she said, sinking down.

She was almost hysterical.
"Try if you cannot," he returned, moodily.
"Oh yes, I will, I will," she went on, inconsequently.

"I'll try;" and jumping up suddenly, she left the room.
In the darkness of the apartment to which she flew nothing could have been seen during the next half-hour; but from a corner a quick breathing was audible from this impressible creature, who combined modern nerves with primitive emotions, and was doomed by such coexistence to be numbered among the distressed, and to take her scourgings to their exquisite extremity.
The window was open.

On this quiet, late summer evening, whatever sound arose in so secluded a district--the chirp of a bird, a call from a voice, the turning of a wheel--extended over bush and tree to unwonted distances.