motion for her, but a great, consuming, embracing joy.

CHAPTER XIV

For hours that night, until one, two, and three o'clock in the morning;
from five, six and seven on until noon and night of the next day, and
the next day after that and the fourth day and the fifth day, the storm
continued. It was a terrible, siege, heart burning, heart breaking,
brain racking; Mrs. Dale lost weight rapidly. The color left her cheeks,
a haggard look settled in her eyes. She was terrified, nonplussed,
driven to extremities for means wherewith to overcome Suzanne's
opposition and suddenly but terribly developed will. No one would have
dreamed that this quiet, sweet-mannered, introspective girl could be so
positive, convinced and unbending when in action. She was as a fluid
body that has become adamant. She was a creature made of iron, a girl
with a heart of stone; nothing moved her--her mother's tears, her
threats of social ostracism, of final destruction, of physical and moral
destruction for Eugene and herself, her threats of public exposure in
the newspapers, of incarceration in an asylum. Suzanne had watched her
mother a long time and concluded that she loved to talk imposingly in an
easy, philosophic, at times pompous, way, but that really there was very
little in what she said. She did not believe that her mother had true
courage--that she would risk incarcerating her in an asylum, or exposing
Eugene to her own disadvantage, let alone poisoning or killing her. Her
mother loved her. She would rage terribly for a time this way, then she
would give in. It was Suzanne's plan to wear her down, to stand her
ground firmly until her mother wearied and broke under the strain. Then
she would begin to say a few words for Eugene, and eventually by much
arguing and blustering, her mother would come round. Eugene would be
admitted to the family councils again. He and Suzanne would argue it all
out together in her mother's presence. They would probably agree to
disagree in a secret way, but she would get Eugene and he her. Oh, the
wonder of that joyous denouement. It was so near now, and all for a
little courageous fighting. She would fight, fight until her mother
broke, and then--Oh, Eugene, Eugene!

Mrs. Dale was not to be so easily overcome as Suzanne imagined. Haggard
and worn as she was, she was far from yielding. There was an actual
physical conflict between them once when Suzanne, in the height of an
argument, decided that she w