So, in a fashion, she had during the past three years come to
regard her twenty-fifth birthday as a milestone in her life. She
would be patient till it came, but then--at last--if circumstances
permitted, she would take her fate into her own hands, She
would--at last--assume the direction of her own life.

So she had planned, but so it was not to be. Her fate had already
begun to shape itself in a fashion that was little to her liking.
Travelling with her father in the North earlier in the summer, she
had met with a slight accident which had compelled her to make the
acquaintance of a lady staying at the same hotel whom she had
disliked at the outset and always sought to avoid. This lady, Mrs.
Emmott, was a widow with no settled home. Profiting by
circumstances she had attached herself to Sylvia and her father,
and now she was the latter's wife.

How it had come about, even now Sylvia scarcely realized. The
woman's intentions had barely begun to dawn upon her before they
had become accomplished fact. Her father's attitude throughout had
amazed her, so astoundingly easy had been his capture. He was
infatuated, possibly for the first time in his life, and no
influence of hers could remove the spell.

Sylvia's feelings for Mrs. Emmott passed very rapidly from dislike
to active detestation. Her iron strength of will, combined with an
almost blatant vulgarity, gave the girl a sense of being borne down
by an irresistible weight. Very soon her aversion became such that
it was impossible to conceal it. And Mrs. Emmott laughed in her
face. She hated Sylvia too, but she looked forward to subduing the