That lawlessness, that casting away of all care for justification, suddenly frightened her: it came to her with the shadowy array of possible calamity behind it--calamity which had ceased to be a mere name for her; and all the infiltrated influences of disregarded religious teaching, as well as the deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping her, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague conception of avenging power. The brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined freedom she would create for herself in marriage, the deliverance from the dull insignificance of her girlhood--all immediately before her; and yet they had come to her hunger like food with the taint of sacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. In the darkness and loneliness of her little bed, her more resistant self could not act against the first onslaught of dread after her irrevocable decision. That unhappy-faced woman and her children--Grandcourt and his relations with her--kept repeating themselves in her imagination like the clinging memory of a disgrace, and gradually obliterated all other thought, leaving only the consciousness that she had taken those scenes into her life. Her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint, faint light penetrated beside the window-curtain; the chillness increased. She could bear it no longer, and cried "Mamma!"
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, immediately, in a wakeful voice.
"Let me come to you."
She soon went to sleep on her mother's shoulder, and slept on till late, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her mother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand.

That lawlessness, that casting away of all care about justification, suddenly frightened her: she glimpsed shadowy calamity behind it.
All the influences of her disregarded religious teaching, as well as the deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping her, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague idea of avenging power. The brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined freedom of marriage, the deliverance from dull insignificance - all had come to her hunger like food with the taint of sacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. That unhappy-faced woman and her children kept reappearing in her imagination, and gradually obliterated all other thought. Her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint light penetrated the window-curtain; the chillness increased. She could bear it no longer, and cried "Mamma!"
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Davilow, immediately wakeful.
"Let me come to you."
She soon went to sleep on her mother's shoulder, and slept on till late, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her mother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand.
