But one cannot pray hot and cold; she felt that she had no right now to lay down any conditions to Heaven in the matter of keeping Herbert Courtland away from her.

She had prayed her prayer; only, if he were drowned before she saw him again, she would never say another prayer.
This feeling that she would be even with Heaven, so to speak, had the effect of soothing her.

She threw herself upon her bed once more and was able to fall asleep; she had a considerable amount of confidence in the discrimination of Heaven.
But before she had come down to the breakfast room where her husband was reading a newspaper in the morning, she had thought a good deal upon another matter that disquieted her in some degree.

She had been exuberant (she thought) at having had sufficient strength given to her to run away from her lover; but then she had not dwelt upon the rather important circumstance that all the running away had not been on her side.

What were the facts as revealed by the narrative of Mr.Ayrton?
Why, simply, that while she was putting on that supreme toilet which she had prepared for the delight of the eyes of her lover (feeling herself to be a modern Cleopatra), that lover of hers was sitting on the cushions of a first-class carriage, flying along to Southampton; and while she had been lying among the cushions of her drawing room, waiting tremulously, nervously, ecstatically, for the dreary minutes to crawl on until the clock should chime the hour of nine, he was probably lighting his first pipe aboard the yacht _Water Nymph_.