Part 80 (1/2)

Mrs. Bathurst made a sharp gesture as if something had pierced her. She shook the shoulder she grasped. ”Love!” she said. ”Oh, don't talk to me of love! Do you imagine--have you ever imagined--that I married that fox-hunting b.o.o.by--for love?”

A great and terrible bitterness that was like the hunger of a famished animal looked out of her eyes. Dinah gazed at her aghast. What new and horrible revelation was this? She felt suddenly sick and giddy.

Her mother shook her again roughly, savagely. ”None of that!” she said.

”Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to marry--for love?”

Her face was darkly pa.s.sionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches of a tigress. ”What--what do you mean?” she faltered through her quivering lips.

”What do I mean?” Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. ”Ha!

What do I mean?” she said. ”I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you!

I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I married because of you--for no other reason. I married because I'd been betrayed--and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick and choose--you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my side ever since you first stirred there--a perpetual reminder of what I 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.

”You--mean--you won't?” Mrs. Bathurst said again very slowly.

”I will not.” The white lips spoke the words, and closed upon them. Dinah sat rigid with apprehension.

Mrs. Bathurst took her hand from her shoulder and turned from her. The candle that had been burning all the evening was low in its socket. She lifted it out and went to the fireplace. There were some shavings in the grate. She pushed the lighted candle end in among them; then, as the fire roared up the chimney, she turned.

An open trunk was close to her with the dainty pale green dress that Dinah had worn the previous evening lying on the top. She took it up, and bundled the soft folds together. Then violently she flung it on to the flames.