Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/188

 leads her into another hallucination, from which she does not escape so easily.

She gathers from Miss Tilney that her mother had not been so fully valued by the General as she might have been, and thereupon jumps to three conclusions, first, that he had been unkind to his wife in her lifetime, secondly, that he had been in some way instrumental in causing her death, and, finally, as her fancy continues to run riot, that perhaps Mrs. Tilney was not really dead at all, but kept somewhere in close confinement by a cruel and tyrrannical husband. The successive stages by which this crowning point of absurd delusion is reached are very well worked out, and they culminate in intense anxiety on Catherine's part to see Mrs. Tilney's room, which, she hears, has been left exactly as it was at her death, and from which she thinks she may discover something; she scarcely knows what. Miss Tilney is puzzled by her extreme desire to visit the room, but is very willing to show it to her. The inopportune presence of the General, however, more than once prevents them; and Catherine, convinced that his interference is not accidental, determines to visit the important room by herself, and see what revelations it will make to her. "Of the way to the apartment she was now perfectly mistress, and, as she wished to get it over before Henry's return, who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The day was bright, her courage high; at four o'clock the sun was now two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to dress half an hour earlier than usual.

"It was done; and Catherine found herself alone in the gallery before the clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time for thought; she hurried