From the moment he had left her till now there had been no time when a consideration of the matter was possible.

Time pressed, or circumstances had interfered, or her own personal condition had forbidden.

Now, when she was alone, the whole awful truth burst on her like an avalanche.

Stephen felt the issue of her thinking before the thinking itself was accomplished; and it was with a smothered groan that she, in the darkness, held up her arms with fingers linked in desperate concentration of appeal.
Oh, if she could only take back one hour of her life, well she knew what that hour would be! Even that shameful time with Leonard on the hill-top seemed innocuous beside the degrading remembrance of her conduct to the noble friend of her whole life.
Sadly she turned over in her bed, and with shut eyes put her burning face on the pillow, to hide, as it were, from herself her abject depth of shame.
Leonard lounged through the next morning with what patience he could.

At four o'clock he was at the door of Normanstand in his dogcart.