For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she had evaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she was at last considered to have passed the age for such childish correction.
But her mother's outbreak of violence on the day of their departure had been a painful disillusion, and she knew well what it would mean to return home in disgrace with the de Vignes.

Her cheeks burned and tingled still with the shame of the discovery.

She felt that another of the old dreadful chastisements would overwhelm her utterly.

And yet that she would most certainly have to endure it if she were unruly now was conviction that pressed like a cold weight upon her heart.

Had not the letter she had received from her mother only that morning contained a stern injunction to her to behave herself, as though she had been a naughty, wayward child?
"It would kill me!" she told herself passionately.