14For several moments Caroline could not move. She felt as if she were paralysed and could only stand there staring, her very heart appeared to have ceased beating.
Suddenly she was free from her own terrible inertia. She turned and fled from the room, running as swiftly as her feet and the hampering folds of her robe would let her. She shut the Library door behind her and sped down the passage. Only as she reached the staircase and began to climb it, at first swiftly and then more slowly, did her brain once again take control over her scattered senses and by the time she reached the landing she was breathing more normally and the blood was coming back into her white cheeks.
Sternly she told herself that this was no moment for feminine vapours. She had expected something drastic to happe
