“And if you do,” retorted Mrs. Dale, rising and speaking in a low tone full of fire and passionate resentment, “if you interfere with me in my quiet and harmless life by telling any person whom I choose to call my friend the horrible thing that you hold over my head, I will break away from you and your surveillance once and for all. I will have the whole story published in the papers, with your share in it as well as mine, and let the world decide which of us is the most to blame: the young woman who has wrecked and poisoned her whole life by one rash and wicked act, or the old one who drove her to it, and then used it forever afterward to goad and madden her!” She paused, and leaned against the table, white to the lips with intense excitement, panting with her own emotion. The other lady had grown white too, and she looked frightened as she answered: “You are allowing your passion to carry you away again. I should have thought you had been cured of that.” The younger lady shuddered, but said nothing; “I was bound to put you on your guard, that was all.” Mrs. Dale moved restlessly. Her face was livid and moist, her hands were shaking: “Surely you have done that!” she said ironically. “Even the Inquisitors of Spain used to let their victims have a little rest from the torture sometimes; just to let the creatures get up their strength again, to give more sport on a future occasion!” The visitor affected to be offended by this speech, and drew herself up in a dignified manner. But it was possible to imagine that she felt just a little shame, or a little twinge of remorse, for her persistent cruelty, for she went so far as to offer a cold hand to Mrs. Dale as she prepared to go. Mrs. Dale looked as if she would have liked to refuse the hand, but did not dare. She touched the black glove with white, reluctant fingers, and let it go at once. “Good-by, Dorothy,” said the elder lady “I am sure you will believe, when you come to yourself and think it over, that I have only your interests at heart in the advice I have given you. No, you need not come to the door. I shall take just one walk round to look at your garden before I go. I have a cab waiting.” She sailed out of the room, the jet fringes on her gown and mantle making a noise which set Mrs. Dale’s teeth on edge. As soon as she was alone, Dorothy threw herself face downward on the hard sofa and burst into a passion of tears and sobs, which rendered her deaf and blind and unconscious of everything but the awful weight at her heart, which she must carry with her to her grave, and of the cruelty which had revived in its first intensity the old, weary pain. She was mad, desperate with grief. She felt that it was more than she could bear; that the remorse gnawing at her heart, the more bitterly for the pleasure of the morning, had reached a point where it became intolerable, where the strength of a woman must give way.