As her stray ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind's sad shore, like birds exhausted, beholding void, and perceiving silence round her, she believed herself alone. Collected she was not yet; perhaps healthy self-possession and self-control were to be hers no more; perhaps that world the strong and prosperous live in had already rolled from beneath her feet for ever. So, at least, it often seemed to herself. In health she had never been accustomed to think aloud, but now words escaped her lips unawares.

Believing herself alone, she let words escape her lips unawares.
