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 Nonsense! She lay down again, pressing her neck deep into the pillows. It was impossible. She did not want to think of it, but, unable to dismiss the thought from her mind, she began a review of recent events. She had not felt quite well lately, had been tired and worn out, worried and nervous generally; that was probably why the little she had taken last night had been too much for her. She could quite understand now that people become abstemious after a few nights of the kind she had just experienced. The other matter she would not consider; if things had gone wrong she would know it in due time—it was no good worrying unnecessarily. She was going to sleep; she was so tired—but she could not keep her thoughts away from that awful subject—ugh!

At the beginning of their relations the possibility of consequences had quite naturally presented itself to her mind, and once or twice she had been in the throes of anxiety, but she had been able to master it and had forced herself to look reasonably at the matter. What if it were true? The dread of having a child is really a senseless superstition; it happens every day. Why should it be worse for her than for any poor working girl, who was able to provide for herself and her child? The anxiety was a remnant from the times when an unmarried woman in similar circumstances had to go to the father or her relations and confess that she had had a good time, and that they had to pay the expenses—with the sad prospect of never afterwards having her provided for by somebody else—a quite sufficient reason for their anger.

Nobody had any right to be angry with her. Her mother would, of course, be sorry, but when a grown-up person tried to live according to his conscience the parents had nothing to say. She had tried to help her mother as much as possible, she had never worried her with her own troubles, her reputation had never been spoilt by any tales of levity, flirtation, or revelling, but where her own opinions about right and wrong differed