That her sacred secret, for instance, might be no more than a _secret de Polichinelle_ suspected by many, did not, so far, occur to her.
Believing it to be her exclusive property, therefore, she, inspired by tender cunning, strove manfully to keep it so.

To that end she made play with the purely physical miseries of her indisposition .-- With shivering fits and scorching flushes, cold aching limbs and burning, aching head.
With the manifold distractions of errant blood which, leaving her heart empty as a turned-down glass, drummed in her ears and throbbed behind her eyeballs.

These discomforts were severely real enough, in all conscience, to excuse her for being self-occupied and a trifle selfish; to justify a blank refusal to receive Theresa Bilson, or attempt to retail and discuss the events of yesterday.

All she craved was quiet, to be left alone, to lie silent in the quiet light of the covered grey day.
In the earlier hours of it, silver rain showers travelled across the sea to spend themselves, tearfully, against the panes of her bedroom windows.

But towards evening the cloud lifted, revealing a watery sunset, spread in timid reds and yellows behind Stone Horse Head and the curving coast-line beyond, away to Stourmouth and Barryport.