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 caught the pained, distorted look on her face in the dim light, but it was too late now to stop the waters. She went on mercilessly. 'I mean it. I can't bear it any longer. There's no sympathy between us. None! None! Oh, go away, go away!'

She flung herself forward on the bed and broke into uncontrolled sobbing. She had done a terrible thing, she supposed, but she was glad. She had let the pressing flood through at last, and it was good to feel it flowing over her, possessing her, sweeping her along with a strength stronger than hers—drenching her, drowning her. It was good to drown in strong, deep waters.

If only one did drown! Oh, but one didn't! One didn't drown in the flood of one's own emotions after all! Sheilah discovered that night that a catastrophe of one's own making can hurt more than the ache of holding it back.

She didn't know whether it was five minutes or five hours later that she rose to the surface of the swirling waters, and heard, coming from afar off, the queer, measured, mechanical sound that proved to be her own voice. She lay very still at first, and tried to stop it. But she couldn't. That was horrible to her. Where was she? What had happened? There was her dressing-table, between the two ruffle-curtained