How could he in his utter physical weakness hope to master the demons that tore Nap Errol’s turbulent soul?  And if Lucas failed her, what then?  What then?  She had no city of refuge to flee unto.  She and her husband were at the mercy of a murderer.  For that he would keep his word she did not for a moment doubt.  Nap Errol was not as other men.  No second thoughts would deter him from his purpose.  Unless Lucas by some miracle withheld him, no other influence would serve.  He would wreak his vengeance with no hesitating hand.  The fire of his savagery was an all-consuming flame, and it was too strongly kindled to be lightly quenched.

Her thoughts went back to her husband.  The date of his return had not been definitely fixed.  The letter had suggested that it should take place some time in the following week.  She had not yet replied to the suggestion.  She put her hand to her head.  Actually she had forgotten!  Ought she not to send a message of warning?  But in what terms could she couch it?  Lucas might even yet succeed.  It might be that even now he was fighting the desperate battle.

Inaction became intolerable.  She had promised Mrs. Errol that she would take a long rest, but there was no rest for her.  She knew that she would hear from Lucas the moment he had anything definite to report; but a new and ghastly fear now assailed her.  What if Nap had not returned to Baronmead?  What if he had gone direct to the asylum, there to snatch his opportunity while his fury was at its height?

The thought turned her sick.  She rose, scarcely knowing what she did, and moved across the room to her escritoire.  The vague idea of penning some sort of warning was in her mind, but before she reached it the conviction stabbed her that it would be too late.  No warning would be of any avail.  If that had been Nap Errol’s intention, by this time the deed was done.  And if that were so, she was in part guilty of her husband’s murder.

Powerless, she sank upon her knees by the open window, striving painfully, piteously, vainly, to pray.  But no words came to her, no prayer rose from her wrung heart.  It was as though she knelt in outer darkness before a locked door.

In that hour Anne Carfax went down into that Place of Desolation which some call hell and some the bitter school of sorrow—­that place in which each soul is alone with its agony and its sin, that place where no light shines and no voice is heard, where, groping along the edge of destruction, the wanderer seeks its Maker and finds Him not, where even the Son of God Himself once lost His faith.

And in that hour she knew why her love lay wounded unto death, though not then did she recognise the revelation as a crowning mercy.  She saw herself bruised and abased, humbled beyond belief.  She saw her proud purity brought low, brought down to the very mire which all her life she had resolutely ignored, from the very though of which she had always withdrawn herself as from an evil miasma that bred corruption.  She saw herself a sinner, sunk incredibly low, a woman who had worshipped Love indeed, but at a forbidden shrine, a woman moreover bereft of all things, who had seen her sacrifice crumble to ashes and had no more to offer.