Bathurst endured in silence for a few moments; then, “Oh, what on earth are you looking for?” he said with sleepy irritation.  “I wish you’d go.”

“I want your brandy flask,” she said, and her words came clipped and sharp.  “Where is it?”

“On the dressing-table,” he said.  “What have you been doing to the child?”

“I’ve given her as much as she can stand,” his wife retorted grimly.  “But you leave her to me!  I’ll manage her.”

She departed with a haste that seemed to denote a certain anxiety notwithstanding her words.

She left the door ajar, and the man turned again on his pillow and listened uneasily.  He was afraid Lydia had gone too far.

For a space he heard nothing.  Then came the splashing of water, and again that piteous, gasping cry.  He caught the sound of his wife’s voice, but what she said he could not hear.  Then there were movements, and Dinah spoke in broken supplication that went into hysterical sobbing.  Finally he heard his wife come out of the room and close the door behind her.

She came back again with the brandy flask.  “She’s had a lesson,” she observed, “that I rather fancy she’ll never forget as long as she lives.”

“Then I hope you’re satisfied,” said Bathurst, and turned upon his side.

Yes, Dinah had had a lesson.  She had passed through a sevenfold furnace that had melted the frozen fountain of her tears till it seemed that their flow would never be stayed again.  She wept for hours, wept till she was sick and blind with weeping, and still she wept on.  And bitter shame and humiliation watched beside her all through that dreadful night, giving her no rest.

For she had gone through this fiery torture, this cruel chastisement of mind and body, all for what?  For love of a man who felt nought but kindness for her,—­for the dear memory of a golden vision that would never be hers again.

CHAPTER XX

THE COMING OF GREATHEART

It was soon after nine on the following morning that Scott presented himself on horseback at the gate of Dinah’s home.  It had been his intention to tie up his animal and enter, but he was met in the entrance by Billy coming out on a bicycle, and the boy at once frustrated his intention.

“Good morning, sir!  Pleased to see you, but it’s no good your coming in.  The pater’s still in bed, and the mater’s doing the house-work.”

“And Dinah?” said Scott.  The question leapt from him almost involuntarily.  He had not meant to display any eagerness, and he sought to cover it by his next words which were uttered with his usual careful deliberation.  “It’s Dinah I have come to see.  I have a message for her from my sister.”

Billy’s freckled face crumpled into troubled lines.  “Dinah has cleared out,” he said briefly.  “I’m just off to the station to try and get news of her.”