The effort of it uprooted her from that spot where her little feet seemed
dug deep into the thick luxurious carpet, and she retreated backwards to
a distant part of the room, hearing herself repeat "You mustn't, you
mustn't" as if it were somebody else screaming. She came to a chair and
flung herself into it. Thereupon the somebody else ceased screaming and
she lolled, exhausted, sightless, in a silent room, as if indifferent to
everything and without a single thought in her head.

The next few seconds seemed to last for ever so long; a black abyss of
time separating what was past and gone from the reappearance of the
governess and the reawakening of fear. And that woman was forcing the
words through her set teeth: "You say I mustn't, I mustn't. All the
world will be speaking of him like this to-morrow. They will say it, and
they'll print it. You shall hear it and you shall read it--and then you
shall know whose daughter you are."

Her face lighted up with an atrocious satisfaction. "He's nothing but a
thief," she cried, "this father of yours. As to you I have never been
deceived in you for a moment. I have been growing more and more sick of
you for years. You are a vulgar, silly nonentity, and you shall go back
to where you belong, whatever low place you have sprung from, and beg
your bread--that is if anybody's charity will have anything to do with
you, which I doubt--"

She would have gone on regardless of the enormous eyes, of the open mouth
of the girl who sat up suddenly with the wild staring expression of being
choked by invisible fingers on her throat, and yet horribly pale. The
effect on her constitution was so profound, Mrs. Fyne told me, that she
who as a child had a rather pretty delicate colouring, showed a white