are very sorry, you have made a mistake, and beg him to forget it and
marry you to-morrow as arranged."

"Mother! No!" Dinah started as if at a blow; the pen dropped from her
fingers. "Oh no! I can't indeed--indeed!"

"You will!" said Mrs. Bathurst.

Her hand gripped the slender shoulder with cruel force. She bent,
bringing her harsh features close to her daughter's blanched face.

"Just you remember one thing!" she said, her voice low and menacing.
"You've never succeeded in defying me yet, and you won't do it now. I'll
conquer you--I'll break you--if it takes me all night to do it!"

Dinah recoiled before the unshackled fury that suddenly blazed in the
gipsy eyes that looked into hers. Sheer horror sprang into her own.

"Oh, but I can't--I can't!" she reiterated in an agony. "I don't love
him. He knows it. I ought to have found out before, but I didn't.
Mother--Mother--" piteously she began to plead--"you--you can't want to
make me marry a man I don't love? You--you would never--surely--have done
such a thing yourself!"

Mrs. Bathurst made a sharp gesture as if something had pierced her. She
shook the shoulder she grasped. "Love!" she said. "Oh, don't talk to me
of love! Do you imagine--have you ever imagined--that I married that
fox-hunting booby--for love?"

A great and terrible bitterness that was like the hunger of a famished
animal looked out of her eyes. Dinah gazed at her aghast. What new and
horrible revelation was this? She felt suddenly sick and giddy.

Her mother shook her again roughly, savagely. "None of that!" she said.
"Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has
love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do
you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to
marry--for love?"

Her face was darkly passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches
of a tigress. "What--what do you mean?" she faltered through her
quivering lips.

"What do I mean?" Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. "Ha!
What do I mean?" she said. "I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you!
I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I
married because of you--for no other reason. I married because I'd been
betrayed--and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick
and choose--you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my
side ever since you first stirred there--a perpetual reminder of what I