It began to dawn on Catherine that she was more than the sport of her own evil luck; she was a pawn in the hands of Heber and of this strange woman, who was making her, in spite of herself, feel her almost brutal fascination. What could she do in such a trap? Even she, with her timid, simple experiences, could guess that Susannah loved her cousin, and her heart quailed at the bitter thought which was assuming a certainty; it was revenge only that had prompted the shepherd to snatch her from the man who had supplanted him, while she had supposed, in her folly, that he loved her still; it was a double revenge that Black Heber was wreaking on herself and on Saunders. The blood ran to her face as she remembered his kisses at the end of their headlong ride. He had but sought to make her humiliation more complete. How meekly she had followed him out of the door at Pencoed! She had distrusted herself all her life; and now she must despise herself too, as she sat, a deluded fool, in front of Susannah, who knew all, and was mocking her because of the knowledge. When people have been a long time in learning some elementary truth, the lesson, once made plain, takes complete hold of them. Catherine had never yet attempted to act for herself and now she saw that she must awake from her passiveness and free herself, once and for all, from the web in which she was taken. As she looked at Susannah she pierced beyond her into a new sequence of ideas. She had been hunted into a corner because she had been too ready to run. All the people she had known were so much stronger than she was that she had given up her own will to theirs without a struggle. Her mistress at the farm, Mrs. Job, Heber, and now Susannah; none of these suffered themselves to be dragged about by circumstances and by others as she had done. She was having hard measure from them all and it was time that, independently of them all, she should choose her own life. Only intense physical exhaustion kept her from running out of the house, yet again, into the night, where she might be alone with her biting mortification. The same roof should not shelter herself and Susannah. Perhaps a shade of pity smote the elder woman at the sight of her white cheeks and her heavy eyes, dark with weariness. She took her by the shoulder. "There," she said, "come you in here and lie down or you'll be dead afore morning." She opened a door and pushed her into a tiny room in which the flicker from the kitchen fire showed the outline of a mattress on the floor. Susannah bade her lie down while she fetched a covering and she obeyed; she would have liked to rebel, but her fatigue was too great. When the elder woman left her she lay still for a space, her one thought of escape. Then she slept, worn out; to-morrow--somehow--she would begin the world for herself. CHAPTER III TALGWYNNE FAIR CHAPTER III TALGWYNNE FAIR