Dinah dropped into the chair, and sat motionless.
"Take your pen!" Mrs. Bathurst commanded.
She hesitated; and instantly, with a violent movement, her mother snatched it up and held it in front of her.
"Take it!"
Dinah took it with fingers so numb that they were almost powerless.
"Now," said Mrs. Bathurst, "I will tell you what you are going to do. You are going to write to Sir Eustace at my dictation, and tell him that you are very sorry, you have made a mistake, and beg him to forget it and marry you to-morrow as arranged."
"Mother! No!" Dinah started as if at a blow; the pen dropped from her fingers. "Oh no! I can't indeed--indeed!"
"You will!" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Her hand gripped the slender shoulder with cruel force. She bent, bringing her harsh features close to her daughter's blanched face.
"Just you remember one thing!" she said, her voice low and menacing. "You've never succeeded in defying me yet, and you won't do it now. I'll conquer you--I'll break you--if it takes me all night to do it!"
Dinah recoiled before the unshackled fury that suddenly blazed in the gipsy eyes that looked into hers. Sheer horror sprang into her own.
"Oh, but I can't--I can't!" she reiterated in an agony. "I don't love him. He knows it. I ought to have found out before, but I didn't. Mother--Mother--" piteously she began to plead--"you--you can't want to make me marry a man I don't love? You--you would never--surely--have done such a thing yourself!"
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 booby--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 passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches of a tigress. "What--what do you mean?" she faltered through her quivering lips.