te
for her actively to resent,

She felt as if a net were closing around her from which, despite
her utmost effort, she was powerless to escape. Also, for weeks
now she had received no letter from Guy, and that fact disheartened
her more than any other. She had never before had to wait so long
for word from him. Very brief, often unsatisfying, as his letters
had been, at least they had never failed to arrive. And she
counted upon them so. Without them, she felt bereft of her
mainstay. Without them, the almost daily, nerve-shattering scenes
which her step-mother somehow managed to enact, however discreet
her attitude, became an infliction hardly to be borne. She might
have left her home for a visit among friends, but something held
her back from this. Something warned her that if she went her
place would be instantly filled up, and she would never return.
And very bitterly she realized the fact that for the next two years
she was dependent. She had not been trained to earn her own
living, and she lacked the means to obtain a training. Her father,
she knew, would not hear of such a thing, nor would he relinquish
the only means he possessed of controlling her actions. She
believed that privately he did not wish to part with her, though
her presence was a very obvious drawback to his comfort. He never
took her part, but also he never threw his weight into the balance
against her. He merely, with considerable surliness, looked on.

And so the cruel struggle went on till it seemed to Sylvia that her
physical strength was ultimately beginning to fail. She came to
dread her step-mother's presence with a feeling akin to nausea, to
shrink in every nerve from the constant ordeals so ruthlessly
thrust upon her,

So far she had never faltered or shown any sign of weakness under
the long-drawn-out persecution, but she was becoming aware that,
strive as she might, her endurance had its limits. She was but
human, and she was intensely sensitive to unkindness. Her nerves
were beginning to give way under the strain. There were even times
when she felt a breakdown to be inevitable, and only the thought of
her step-mother's triumph warded it off. Once down, and she knew
she would be a slave, broken beyond redemption to the most pitiless
tyranny. And so, though her strength was worn threadbare through
perpetual strain, she clung to it still. If only--oh, if only--Guy
would write! If he should be ill--if he should f