ed treat me as I am
treated."

Overcome by this unexpected violence, the count could only stammer out
a few incoherent words. Henrietta was about to go on, when she felt
herself taken by the arm, and gently but irresistibly taken up to the
house. It was Sir Thorn, who tried to save her from her own excitement.
She looked at him; a big tear was slowly rolling down the cheek of the
impassive gentleman.

Then, when he had led her as far as the staircase, and she had laid hold
of the balusters, he said,--

"Poor girl!"

And went away with rapid steps.

Yes, "poor girl" indeed!

Her resolve was giving way under all these terrible blows; and seized
with a kind of vertigo, out of breath, and almost beside herself, she
had rushed up the steps, feeling as if she still heard the abominable
accusations of her father, and the laughter of the servants.

"O God," she sobbed, "have pity on me!"

She felt in her heart that she had no hope left now but God, delivered
up as she was to pitiless adversaries, sacrificed to the implacable
hatred of a stepmother, abandoned by all, and betrayed and openly
renounced by her own father.

Hour by hour she had seen how, by an incomprehensible combination of
fatal circumstances, the infernal circle narrowed down, within which she
was wretchedly struggling, and which soon would crush her effectually.
What did they want of her? Why did they try every thing to exasperate
her to the utmost? Did they expect some catastrophe to result from her
despair?

Unfortunately, she did not examine this question carefully, too
inexperienced as she was to suspect the subtle cunning of people whose
wickedness would have astonished a criminal judge. Ah, how useful one
word from Daniel would have been to her at this crisis! But, trembling
with anguish for his betrothed, the unhappy man had not dared repeat
to her the terrible words which had escaped M. de Brevan, in his first
moment of expansion,--

"Miss Brandon leaves the dagger and the poisoned cup to fools, as too
coarse and too dangerous means to get rid of people. She has safer
means to suppress those who are in her way--means which justice never
discovers."

Lost in sombre reflections, the poor girl was forgetting the hour,
and did not notice that it had become dark already, when she heard the
dinner-bell ring. She was free not to go down; but she revolted at the
idea that the Countess Sarah might think her overcome. So she said to
herself,--