Do not ask me how."

Rosalie flung her arms round her waist and for a moment hid her face.

"YOU! YOU!" she murmured, but stopped herself almost as she uttered the
exclamation. "I will not ask you," she said when she spoke again. "But
now I shall not be so ashamed. You are a beauty and wonderful, and I am
not; but if you KNOW, that makes us almost the same. You will understand
why I broke down. It was because I could not bear to think of what will
happen. I shall be saved and taken home, but Nigel will wreak revenge on
HIM. And I shall be the shame that is put upon him--only because he was
kind--KIND. When father comes it will all begin." She wrung her hands,
becoming almost hysterical.

"Hush," said Betty. "Hush! A man like that CANNOT be hurt, even by a man
like Nigel. There is a way out--there IS. Oh, Rosy, we must BELIEVE it."

She soothed and caressed her and led her on to relieving her long
locked-up misery by speech. It was easy to see the ways in which her
feeling had made her life harder to bear. She was as inexperienced as a
girl, and had accused herself cruelly. When Nigel had tormented her with
evil, carefully chosen taunts, she had felt half guilty and had coloured
scarlet or turned pale, afraid to meet his sneeringly smiling face. She
had tried to forget the kind voice, the kindly, understanding eyes, and
had blamed herself as a criminal because she could not.

"I had nothing else to remember--but unhappiness--and it seemed as if I
could not help but remember HIM," she said as simply as the Rosy who
had left New York at nineteen might have said it. "I was afraid to trust
myself to speak his name. When Nigel made insulting speeches I could
not answer him, and he used to say that women who had adventures should
train their faces not to betray them every time they were looked at.

"Oh!" broke from Betty's lips, and she stood up on the hearth and threw
out her hands. "I wish that for one day I might be a man--and your
brother instead of your sister!"

"Why?"

Betty smiled strangely--a smile which was not amused--which was perhaps
not a smile at all. Her voice as she answered was at once low and tense.

"Because, then I should know what to do. When a male creature cannot be
reached through manhood or decency or shame, there is one way in which
he can be punished. A man--a real man--should take him by his throat
and lash him with a whip--while others look on--lash him until he howls
aloud like a dog."