She lay in a deadly fear.

Now was the time when, if her own mother had been alive, she would have screamed aloud for some aid.

But now she could call to no one.

She would have spoken to her father.

She would not have told him--she was gripped too fast by her sense of the need of secrecy--but she would have obtained the comfort and aid of his presence and soothing words; but there was Ida.