me... Ah,
you're afraid. You daren't. You daren't!"

She almost laughed, and Mrs. Payne knew that she had spoken the truth.
It looked, for a moment, as if she were going to be beaten on this point,
for Gabrielle snatched at her weakness, repeating the unanswerable "You
daren't!" Then, suddenly, without any warning, the girl's triumphant
spirit collapsed. From the verge of laughter she toppled over into
tears. She put her hands to her eyes and then, turning her back on Mrs.
Payne, collapsed on her bed, weeping bitterly.

At the sight of this thankfulness flooded Mrs. Payne's heart; but beneath
this dominant emotion, which came almost as the result of her conscious
wish, flowed another that she would gladly have suppressed: pity, nothing
less, for the child who lay sobbing on the bed. A minute before she had
seen in Gabrielle her most dangerous enemy in the world; now, even though
she rejoiced in the girl's sudden collapse, she felt that she wanted to
take her in her arms and kiss her and comfort her. For a moment or two
she fought against it, but in the end, scarcely knowing what she had
done, she found that she was fondling Gabrielle's hand and being shaken
by the communicated passion of her sobs. One thought kept running
through her brain: "I've won ... I've won, and can afford to be
generous," and this, together with the curious physical liking that she
had always felt for Gabrielle, disarmed her. She set herself to
comforting the child. It was the last thing in the world she had
intended to do, but it came natural to her motherly soul. She was glad,
indeed, that Gabrielle did not resent these attentions, as she very well
might have done. Gradually her sobbing ceased and she began to speak,
clinging all the time to Mrs. Payne, herself not guiltless of a
sympathetic tear, while she told her the story of her early years: of the
wild life she had led at Roscarna, of Jocelyn's debauches and Biddy's
rough mothering.

It was the first time that all this flood of reminiscence had been
loosed. Gabrielle had never made a confidante before, and it was an
ecstasy of tears and laughter to dwell upon these memories, and to
rehearse them. "I was so happy as a child," she said, "so awfully happy.
But now there's nothing left."

Mrs. Payne, still sympathetic, found herself suddenly plunged into the
ardours of the Radway affair; the miraculous meeting on the Clonderriff
road; the halcyon days of August, and then the