You can't scare me into being good with your cruel hymn-book!" She could not swear: she was not a boy.

She would not cry: she felt proud, obdurate, scornful, outraged.

All these images, borrowed from the holy Inquisition, were meant to frighten her--and had simply irritated her.

The blow of a weapon that glances off, stinging, but not penetrating, only enrages.

It was a moment of fearful danger to her character, to her life itself.
Without heeding the cries of the two women, she sprang up-stairs to her hanging chamber.