"Hush! Not another word, or I will strike you!"
"You shall not!"
Beatrix faced the termagant before her with a white, resolute face, and a look in the depths of her dark eyes which made Mrs. Lynne quail.
"As I intend going over to the village tonight," said Beatrix, quietly, "that I may be in time for the train in the morning, I may as well bid you good-bye. I think that you will be sorry some day for the way that you have treated me, Mrs. Lynne."
She closed the door behind the retreating figure of her tormentor, and made ready for the journey. A little later she came down the stairs, attired in a traveling-dress, her only baggage a small hand-bag. Everything was as still as death. She stole softly to the door of the room where Keith Kenyon lay upon his sick-bed. The door was closed; she paused and laid her hot cheek against the cold, hard panel of the door, her sore heart swelling with bitter resentment.
"Good-bye!" she whispered, softly. "I shall never see you again—my friend that might have been. Good-bye!"
Never see him again? Yet how can Beatrix Dane know that? In the long, dark days before her, how can she tell what the strange chances in life's lottery may bring her? It is well that she does not know. How many of us, knowing the future, would shrink from the ordeal before us, and pray for the boon of death!