She towered over Dinah with awful determination, wrought up to a pitch of fury by her resistance that almost bordered upon insanity.
Dinah's boldness waned swiftly before the iron force that countered it. But her resolution remained unshaken, a resolution from which no power on earth could move her.
"I can't do it--possibly," she said.
"You mean you won't?" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Dinah nodded, and gripped the table hard to endure what should follow.
"You--mean--you won't?" Mrs. Bathurst said again very slowly.
"I will not." The white lips spoke the words, and closed upon them. Dinah sat rigid with apprehension.
Mrs. Bathurst took her hand from her shoulder and turned from her. The candle that had been burning all the evening was low in its socket. She lifted it out and went to the fireplace. There were some shavings in the grate. She pushed the lighted candle end in among them; then, as the fire roared up the chimney, she turned.
An open trunk was close to her with the dainty pale green dress that Dinah had worn the previous evening lying on the top. She took it up, and bundled the soft folds together. Then violently she flung it on to the flames.
Dinah gave a cry of dismay, and started to her feet. "Mother! What are you doing? Mother! Are you mad?"
Mrs. Bathurst looked at her with eyes of blazing vindictiveness. "If you are not going to be married, you won't need a trousseau," she said grimly. "These things are quite unfit for a girl in your station. For Lady Studley they would of course have been suitable, but not for such as you."
She turned back to the open trunk with the words, and began to sweep together every article of clothing it contained. Dinah watched her in horror-stricken silence. She remembered with odd irrelevance how once in her childhood for some petty offence her mother had burnt a favourite doll, and then had whipped her soundly for crying over her loss.
She did not cry now. Her tears seemed frozen. She did not feel as if she could ever cry again. The cold that enwrapped her was beginning to reach her heart. She thought she was getting past all feeling.
So in mute despair she watched the sacrifice of all that Isabel's loving care had provided. So much thought had been spent upon the delicate finery. They had discussed and settled each dainty garment together. She had revelled in the thought of all the good things which she was to wear--she who had never worn anything that was beautiful before. And now--and now--they shrivelled in the roaring flame and dropped into grey ash in the fender.