The cataract might inspire her with dread, standing as
it did for death and disaster, but the maelstrom was not to be
resisted. She was helpless in it, unequal to breasting such strong
waters, she who in all her futile, charming life had been borne
snugly in safe crafts that were steered by others.
Remained but to choose her confidant. Nature suggested Terence.
But it was against Terence in particular that she had been warned.
Circumstance now offered Sylvia Armytage. But pride, or vanity if
you prefer it, denied her here. Sylvia was an inexperienced young
girl, as she herself had so often found occasion to remind her cousin.
Moreover, she fostered the fond illusion that Sylvia looked to her
for precept, that upon Sylvia's life she exercised a precious guiding
influence. How, then, should the supporting lean upon the supported?
Yet since she must, there and then, lean upon something or succumb
instantly and completely, she chose a middle course, a sort of
temporary assistance.
"I have been imagining things," she said. "It may be a premonition,
I don't know. Do you believe in premonitions, Sylvia?"
"Sometimes," Sylvia humoured her.
"I have been imagining that if Dick is hiding, a fugitive, he might
naturally come to me for help.
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