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
bloodless face for a couple of years afterwards, and remained always
liable at the slightest emotion to an extraordinary ghost-like whiteness.
The end came in the abomination of desolation of the poor child's
miserable cry for help: "Charley! Charley!" coming from her throat in
hidden gasping efforts. Her enlarged eyes had discovered him where he
stood motionless and dumb.
He started from his immobility, a hand withdrawn brusquely from the
pocket of his overcoat, strode up to the woman, seized her by the arm
from behind, saying in a rough commanding tone: "Come away, Eliza." In
an instant the child saw them close together and remote, near the door,
gone through the door, which she neither heard nor saw being opened or
shut. But it was shut. Oh yes, it was shut. Her slow unseeing glance
wandered all over the room. For some time longer she remained leaning
forward, collecting her strength, doubting if she would be able to stand.
She stood up at last. Everything about her spun round in an oppressive
silence. She remembered perfectly--as she told Mrs. Fyne--that clinging
to the arm of the chair she called out twice "Papa! Papa!" At the
thought that he was far away in London everything about her became quite
still. Then, frightened suddenly by the solitude of that empty room, she
rushed out of it blindly.