ould not watch the destruction of that fairy thing. But it went so
quickly, so quickly. When she looked up again, it had crumbled away like
the rest, and the shimmering veil with it. Nothing, nothing was left of
all the splendour that had been hers.

She sank down on the foot of the bed. Surely her mother would be
satisfied now! Surely her lust for vengeance could devise no further
punishment!

She was nearing the end of her strength, and she was beginning to know
it. The room swam before her dizzy sight. Her mother's figure loomed
gigantic, scarcely human.

She saw her poke down the last of the cinders and turn to the door. There
was a pungent smell of smoke in the room. She wondered if she would ever
be able to cross that swaying, seething floor to open the window. She
closed her eyes and listened with straining ears for the closing of the
door.

It came, and following it, a sharp click as of the turning of a key. She
looked up at the sound, and saw her mother come back to her. She was
carrying something in one hand, something that dangled and east a
snake-like shadow.

She came to the cowering girl and caught her by the arm. "Now get up!"
she ordered brutally. "And take the rest of your punishment!"

Truly Dinah drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs that night. Mentally
she had suffered till she had almost ceased to feel. But physically her
powers of endurance had not been so sorely tried. But her nerves were
strung to a pitch when even a sudden movement made her tingle, and upon
this highly-tempered sensitiveness the punishment now inflicted upon her
was acute agony. It broke her even more completely than it had broken her
in childhood. Before many seconds had passed the last shred of her
self-control was gone.

Guy Bathurst, lying comfortably in bed, was aroused from his first
slumber by a succession of sharp sounds like the lashing of a loosened
creeper against the window, but each sound was followed by an anguished
cry that sank and rose again like the wailing of a hurt child.

He turned his head and listened. "By Jove! That's too bad of Lydia," he
said. "I suppose she won't be satisfied till she's had her turn, but I
shall have to interfere if it goes on."

It did not go on for long; quite suddenly the cries ceased. The other
sounds continued for a few seconds more, then ceased also, and he turned
upon his pillow with a sigh of relief.

A minute later he was roused again by the somewhat abrupt ent