Gaunt, forbidding, full of purpose, she walked in, and set her candle down beside the one that Dinah had been about to extinguish.
"Get up!" she said to the startled girl. "Don't sit there gaping at me! I've come here to give you a lesson, and it will be a pretty severe one I can tell you if you attempt to disobey me."
"What do you want me to do?" breathed Dinah.
She stood up at the harsh behest, but she was trembling so much that her knees would scarcely support her. Her heart was throbbing violently, and each throb seemed as if it would choke her. She had seen that inflexibly grim look often before upon her mother's face, and she knew from bitter experience that it portended merciless treatment.
Mrs. Bathurst did not reply immediately. She went to a little table in a corner which Dinah used for writing purposes, and opened a blotter that lay upon it. From this she took a sheet of note-paper and laid it in readiness, found Dinah's pen, opened the ink-pot. Then, over her shoulder, she flung a curt command: "Come here!"
Dinah went, every nerve in her body tingling, her face and hands cold as ice.
Mrs. Bathurst glanced at her with a contemptuous smile. "Sit down, you little fool!" she said. "Now, you take that pen and write at my dictation!"
Dinah shrank at the rough words. She felt like a child about to receive corporal punishment. The vindictive force of the woman seemed to beat her down. Writhe and strain as she might, she was bound to suffer both the pain and the indignity to the uttermost limit; for she lacked the strength to break free.
She did not sit down however. She remained standing by the little table.
"Mother," she said through her white lips, "what do you want me to do?"