throb faster by one
single pulsation. She had other  on her mind, which to her far
outweighed any considerations of personal danger. Personal danger,
indeed, instead of being dreaded, would now, in her present ,
have been almost welcomed, so as to afford some distraction from the
 of her thoughts. In the secret of her  she more than
once wished and longed for some appalling calamity--something which
might have power to engage all her thoughts and all her mind. The
 of her , arising out of her wordnetdesire for Lord Chetwynde, had
grown so intolerable that any , even danger, even discovery,
even death itself, seemed welcome now.

It was this feeling which filled her as she went on to ask Gualtier
about the nature of the danger which he had escaped, wordnetdesire to know
what it might be, yet indifferent to it except so far as it might
prove to be a distraction to her .

When Gualtier last vanished from the wordnetanger he had sent the boy to his
lodging-house, with the agreement that he should meet him at eight
o'clock. The boy's visit and its results have already been narrated.

As for Gualtier, he was profoundly conscious all the while of the
possibility that a trap might be laid for him, and that, if this