Her father! All her lifelong terror of his race, all that she had known of them up to the encounter of that very evening, which now seemed years ago, surged through her mind; and, as if mocking her, came above all, her own face with the dark traits which she had believed to be Spanish, but which she could now trace to such a different origin.

In a moment, and for ever, her girlish vanity fell from her.

She felt as if her beauty were but the badge of degradation and misery.

And then there came the keen instinct of resentment--it was to her mother, whom she loved, that she owed this intolerable suffering.

Crouching down and shivering, as if with cold, she yielded to the storm of thought which swept over her, yielded to it in a kind of blind despair, from which she had neither wish nor power to rouse herself.
But this mood, which seemed to paralyse her, lasted in reality but a few minutes; she was roused by her mother's voice and touch.