But she could not swallow it.

She had been keeping a desperate hold on herself too long.

The bewildered misery of her awakening, the awkwardness of the public row at the station, the sulks which had filled the carriage to repletion through all the long drive, and finally the jangling bells which had so recalled that last joyous day at home--at home--had brought her to a point where this meeting between mother and son--these two stony, unpleasant creatures exchanging a reluctant rub of uninviting cheeks--as two savages might have rubbed noses--proved the finishing impetus to hysteria.

They were so hideous, these two, and so ghastly comic and fantastic in their unresponsive glumness, that the poor girl lost all hold upon herself and broke into a trembling shriek of laughter.
"Oh!" she gasped in terror at what she felt to be her indecent madness.
"Oh! how--how----" And then seeing Nigel's furious start, his mother's glare and all the servants' alarmed stare at her, she rushed staggering to the only creature she felt she knew--her maid Hannah, clutched her and broke down into wild sobbing.
"Oh, take me away!" she cried.

"Oh, do! Oh, do! Oh, Hannah! Oh, mother--mother!" "Take your mistress to her room," commanded Sir Nigel.