"Dom, you are talking nonsense," protested her sister. "I did prevent your running away with Captain Fielder; you will thank me some day--and I have kept your secret loyally. This sort of affair is hateful to me--I do assure you." Dominga's incredulous laugh was almost like the cry of a hyena. "I know that Captain Fielder does not intend to marry you; you see what his love means! I thought you were proud of being a Chandos. Could you bear to drag your life out in the gutter?" "I could bear to drag out my life, following Jimmy round the world on my bare knees--I would ask no more; and last night I had not seen him for six weeks--and I was within three minutes of meeting him--I--who have been counting the very hours since he left me. And you--you"--she choked--"oh, I cannot speak! but I could tear you to pieces"; and with a moan like some wounded animal Dominga staggered from the room. * * * * * Whatever Dominga had told her mother, she now evinced to her third daughter a bitter and invincible animosity--life became almost insupportable, and the wretched girl's only refuge was either the den or the dufta. "Aha," exclaimed Nani, "it were better to have been advised by me. Dom avers that you have ravished from her her lover--'The Honourable'--the lord's son. She hath her mother's ear, and for all your good will, Dom has set her against you. So you will find, 'that to gain a cat--you have lost a cow'!" CHAPTER XXXVIII Were she to live to the age of one hundred years Verona could never forget that hot weather at Manora--the memory was burnt into her very soul. It was not merely the absolute desolation of the season, not only the breathless atmosphere that seemed to quench all vitality, the endless hours spent in idleness, because the rooms were necessarily darkened, it was not the maddening "Tonk Tonk" of the coppersmith bird, the thoughts of her past, the hopelessness of her future, but every other sensation was dominated by the fact that under the same roof, in that still, dim bungalow, abode two malignant spirits, whose every glance and word breathed invincible hatred and ill will.