Her father, a weak inarticulate man, was dying; her stepmother hated her; and she had long ceased to write to Miss Anna, because it was she who had urged John to go to London! All sane inference and normal reasoning were now indeed, and had been for some time, impossible to her.
Fenwick, possessed by the imaginations of his art, had had no imagination--alack!--to spend upon his wife's case, and those morbid processes of brain developed in her by solitude, and wounded love, and mortified vanity.

One hour with him!--one hour of love, scolding, tears--would have saved them both.

Alone, she was incapable of the merest common sense.

She came prepared to discover the worst--to find evidence for all her fears.

And for the worst she had elaborately laid her plans.