Her excited imagination figured Julian Gray as present in the room at that moment, speaking to her as Horace had proposed.

She saw him seated close at her side--this man who had shaken her to the soul when he was in the pulpit, and when she was listening to him (unseen) at the other end of the chapel--she saw him close by her, looking her searchingly in the face; seeing her shameful secret in her eyes; hearing it in her voice; feeling it in her trembling hands; forcing it out of her word by word, till she fell prostrate at his feet with the confession of the fraud.

Her head dropped again on the cushions; she hid her face in horror of the scene which her excited fancy had conjured up.

Even now, when she had made that dreaded interview needless, could she feel sure (meeting him only on the most distant terms) of not betraying herself?
She could _not_ feel sure.
Something in her shuddered and shrank at the bare idea of finding herself in the same room with him.

She felt it, she knew it: her guilty conscience owned and feared its master in Julian Gray! The minutes passed.