would have given my very soul to forget? Do you understand, I say? Do you
understand? Or must I put it plainer still? You--the child of my
shame--to dare to set yourself up against me!"

She ended upon what was almost a note of loathing, and Dinah shuddered
from head to foot. It was to her as if she had been rolled in pitch. She
felt overwhelmed with the cruel degradation of it, the unspeakable shame.

Mrs. Bathurst watched her anguished distress with a species of bitter
satisfaction. "That'll take the fight out of you, my girl," she said. "Or
if it doesn't, I've another sort of remedy yet to try. Now, you start on
that letter, do you hear? It'll be a bit shaky, but none the worse for
that. Write and tell him you've changed your mind! Beg him humble-like to
take you back!"

But Dinah only bowed her head upon her hands and sat crushed.

Mrs. Bathurst gave her a few seconds to recover her balance. Then again
mercilessly she shook her by the shoulder.

"Come, Dinah! I'm not going to be defied. Are you going to write that
letter at once? Or must I take stronger measures?"

And then a species of wild courage entered into Dinah. She turned at last
at bay. "I will not write it! I would sooner die! If--if this thing is
true, it would be far easier to die! I couldn't marry any man now who had
any pride of birth."

She was terribly white, but she faced her tormentor unflinching, her eyes
like stars. And it came to Mrs. Bathurst with unpleasant force that she
had taken a false step which it was impossible to retrace. It was then
that the evil spirit that had been goading her entered in and took full
possession.

She gripped Dinah's shoulder till she winced with pain. "Mother, you--you
are hurting me!"

"Yes, and I will hurt you," she made answer. "I'll hurt you as I've never
hurt you yet if you dare to disobey me! I'll crush you to the earth
before I will endure that from you. Now! For the last time! Will you
write that letter? Think well before you refuse again!"

She towered over Dinah with awful determination, wrought up to a pitch of
fury by her resistance that almost bordered upon insanity.

Dinah's boldness waned swiftly before the iron force that countered it.
But her resolution remained unshaken, a resolution from which no power on
earth could move her.

"I can't do it--possibly," she said.

"You mean you won't?" said Mrs. Bathurst.

Dinah nodded, and gripped the table hard to endure what should follow.