scourge--strike! Go on, I say!"

There was an impatient, almost fierce resolution in her voice, and I
obeyed.

If this woman regarded the act of listening to the dreadful tale I had
to tell as a penance, then, indeed, she allowed it to become a torture.
I was obliged to recount the smallest incident of the ghastly event, and
she drank in every word, shuddering as at some deadly poison. Again and
again she questioned me with the skill and zeal of a professional
cross-examiner. Nor would she let me omit a syllable. And when at the
most fearful and heartrending point, her soft, dimpled chin sunk down on
her breast, and her fair, babyish hand knocked at the tender bosom "_Mea
culpa_! Oh, _mea culpa_!"

When she heard that the uncoupling of the parlour car had caused a
delay, she groaned. "Then all this terrible mishap is due to our own
vanity?" she cried. "A consequence of our own presumptuous pride! If our
dependents had sat with the boy in a common carriage with other decent
travellers, the train would have passed the fatal spot long before the
landslide was in motion! But, of course, the Silver King's son is far
too precious a creature to breathe the same air with other creatures of
God's making. He must needs have a separate parlour to himself! And this
sinful, detestable vanity of ours must cost the lives of so many good,
brave, happy, and useful persons. Oh, hell itself must mock at our
folly!"

Now this commination, unexpected as it was from a lady of wealth and
position, was not altogether unwarranted, and so I went on.