She had made her father's life even more unhappy than it need have been, and to be reminded of that only drove her more resolutely upon the recklessness which would complete her ingratitude.
The afternoon wore away, the evening, a great part of the night.

She ate a few mouthfuls of bread, but could not exert herself to make tea.
It would be necessary to light a fire, and already the air of the room was stifling.
After a night of sleeplessness, she could only lie on her bed through the Sunday morning, wretched in a sense of abandonment.

And then began to assail her that last and subtlest of temptations, the thought that already she had taken an irrevocable step, that an endeavour to return would only be trouble spent in vain, that the easy course was, in truth, the only one now open to her.

Mrs.Tubbs was busy circulating calumnies; that they were nothing more than calumnies could never be proved; all who heard them would readily enough believe.

Why should she struggle uselessly to justify herself in the eyes of people predisposed to condemn her?
Fate was busy in all that had happened during the last two days.