It was a biting cold morning in March when an old carriage, its wheels grinding on its axles, left Thurso; it proceeded along a snow-covered road which wound its way almost constantly along the northern coast of Scotland. For the tourist the road is among the most picturesque in that country, permitting one to admire the Cape of Duncansby, the ancient Berubium of Ptolemy, the Pentland Firth, against which break the waves of the North Sea where it flanks the Atlantic, and still further north the Orkney Islands come to make their appearance.

On the driver's seat a surly-looking old coachman sat, his brushwood beard frosted with the cold. He appeared to be half asleep as he let the horses follow their noses in reliance on their good-will to keep to the road. He was enfolded in a cloak of multiple capes, and the upper part of his face was buried to his ears and eyebrows in an enormous furry headgear.

In the carriage, the windows tightly closed, sat two travelers.

One was a young girl, little more than eighteen years old. The other was a lady of possibly forty, tall, stout and matronly, and possessed of a square and forbidding-looking chin arrogantly projected forward. Her cheeks were colored by an abundance of blood, her nose was authoritative, her eyes narrow and cruel, her lips quite thin. She was enveloped in a huge fur wrap and from the corner of the carriage where she sat, she stared fixedly at the young girl sitting opposite her on the seat facing backward. On the girl's face was an expression of infinite sadness, her features were pale with cold and perhaps anguish, and she offered a startling contrast to the face and figure of her traveling companion.

The horses had ceased laboring up a steep grade, and the infernal squeaking of the axles, the groans of the ancient coach and the rattling of the glass windows had subsided somewhat; when the big woman, judging that her voice would now be more apt to reach the girl's ears, leaned forward and spoke:

"Lily! Come over here beside me! You don't suppose I am going to wear myself out shouting at you!"

The poor child sighed and obeyed, greatly confused and fearful of irritating the lady.

"Now then, please do not forget that you have become my maid. You do not know me, but I know you very well. More than six months ago, when you became an inmate of Mrs. Wharton's Training School for Girls, your directress had dragged you, after considerable trouble, out of a mess which made you virtually a fugitive from justice."

The lady's voice was hard and severe. She talked, this important personage, in the tone of a schoolmistress scolding a pupil before administering a flogging. She resumed:

"You tried to make yourself pass for another and gave yourself the name of Laura Blake, but your imposture, thank heaven, was discovered. Now I know that your mistress has trained you to be docile and submissive, but it is one thing to submit yourself to the rules of a girls' training school and quite another to submit to my own. You know my name?"

"They told me, Madame...."

"Madame! Milady to you, hereafter, do you understand? What is my name, or have you forgotten? Who am I?"

Tears gathered on the girl's lashes. She swallowed a sob and stammered:

"Lady Manville, Milady...."

"Yes, Lady Manville. I am a widow. I have two other maids, a page-boy, a groom, and a governess who is authorized by me to look strictly after my personnel. I am rich, yes, indeed! And I could live luxuriously in London, or anywhere on the Continent, Lily, all year round, if I liked, but I prefer Duncaster House. Did you ever hear of Duncaster House?"

"No, Milady...."

"You shall very soon come to know it. Its history is a strange one, but what does it matter? I shall tell you only this: The old place, which is close to the celebrated Houna Inn, was built in the 16th Century by the Hollander, Peter van Weem. It is of octagonal shape and has an entrance door on each side. Peter van Weem had eight children and when they and their families came to visit, to keep them from quarreling, he made each family enter through the door which was designated for them. Thus his children and their families were able to remain under the paternal roof without coming into conflict."

Lady Manville paused for a moment and then resumed:

"At my house you shall have much work to do, and you will find me very severe.... Does that frighten you?"

"No, Mad ... Milady," murmured Lily.

A faint smile came over Lady Manville's face.

"So much the better!" she said. "I do not like frightened faces around me. I like youth, cheerfulness, even when I punish.... I shall teach you a little song I shall require you to sing sometimes while I am whipping you. I like to hear that much better than I do cries and grinding of teeth!"

A great sigh filled the breast of the charming young girl. What, indeed, was likely to be her fate around a woman of this sort! To spend her life as her lady's maid! Was it possible! For she had never, even in her most trying moments, despite the appearance of absolute submission she exhibited toward her former mistresses, abandoned hope of deliverance, of a resumption of her true personality. Even the dubious affection, if one may call it affection, that Miss Evelyn had for her, had been meaningless when it came to binding her out arbitrarily to a hostile mistress-sale is the proper word-and which delivered her into the hands of this strange woman whose manner and appearance was as far from engaging as possible. Broken morally by the severe discipline of the Training School, she had not dared to deliver herself of even the sign of a protest, and meekly she had assembled her trifling belongings and taken her place in the old coach which was now leading her toward the unknown.... The words of Lady Manville plunged her into a bitter despair which she was forcing herself to dissimulate.

Meanwhile a new grade was reached, the carriage had begun to roll from side to side again, and the horses seemed to be fired with a sudden zeal for work. The jolting shook the travelers terribly, and each moment threw Lily against Lady Manville and vice-versa.

The lady regarded the young girl at her leisure and seemed to take pleasure in her embarrassment.

"Lord! but you are an encumbrance, Lily!" she exclaimed finally. "How I regret not having made you sit with the coachman. But you are so badly dressed and so scantily that you might have taken ill before our arrival, and I must guard against anything like that, for I paid much more for you than you are worth!"

There was silence, then Lady Manville spoke again:

"We cannot continue like this: Get on your knees here before me. In that way I shall be able to watch you, and when I talk to you I shall know that you hear me."

Lily took the position indicated, but there was very little room and she found herself quite firmly against her mistress who pulled her still closer.

"There! Now you are like a little girl in penitence! I like to see you that way...."

She pinched the girl's chin and pulled her head upward.

"Why are your eyes full of tears? You are sensitive, I can see that. So much the better! I prefer it; at least when I shall scold or chastise you, I shall have the pleasure of seeing that it does not leave you disrespectfully indifferent!..."

She leaned forward and her hot breath swept across Lily's face.

"For I shall chastise you, you know! You have been whipped frequently, haven't you?"

Lily, strangled by her anguish, gulped hard and could not pronounce a word. She was scarlet.

"Well? Didn't you understand me? I asked if you have been whipped often?"

"Mad ... ame ... I ... yes, Milady...."

"You are stupid, truly, Lily! Your tongue is paralyzed, I think! I am going to punish your little tongue, Lily! ... Stick it out!

"Oh! ... oooh!" groaned Lily, overcome. "I beg you, Milady, if you please...."

"It pleases me, you stubborn child, to have you thrust your stupid little tongue out of your mouth! At once!"

Lily half-opened her lips and the extremity of her pink tongue, like that of a kitten, appeared between her pearly teeth.

"Oh! you wicked girl! Is this the way you obey? ... Will you stick it out entirely? Here! Here!"

Before the child had a chance to protect herself, she received two sonorous slaps, one on each cheek. She burst into tears and covered her face with her chubby little hands which the extreme cold had reddened.

"Put your hands behind your back at once, you disobedient girl!" ordered Lady Manville, frowning severely. "I forbid you to conceal your face! Did one ever see such rebellion!"

Lily obeyed this time. The slaps had left definite red imprints on her velvety cheeks.

"And your tongue? ... must I go search it in your mouth with a pair of tweezers when we arrive? Stick it out, immediately!"

The tongue was stuck out. It was pink for its entire length, a sign of perfect health, and its darting point trembled 1

Lady Manville extended her hand, and with her thumb and index finger pulled it down and pinched it.

"That will loosen your speech, I hope! Will you answer me properly now?"

Lily emitted a yell of pain, and her eyes bulged with fright. She had brought her hands around in front, but did not dare, however, lift them toward her torturer. The latter released her hold at last and the girl was able to withdraw the wounded tongue. She wept bitterly.

"Oh! yes, you are sensitive!" remarked the lady with a visible satisfaction. "I see that you like to cry! Will you answer me now, my beauty? I reiterate my question. Have you been whipped often?"

"Y ... es ... Milady!..." sobbed Lily.

"Before coming to the Training School or only there?"

"At the Training School ... Milady!"

"Never before?"

"Nev ... er ... Milady!"

"Poor education!" sighed the big woman, lifting her eyes to heaven, which for the moment was represented by the roof of the carriage. "Fortunately, Mrs. Wharton and her assistants have remedied that a little! ... And as for myself, I shall do even better than they.... Doesn't it make you feel content to know that you will be whipped even more frequently and more soundly than you were before?"

Sobs alone responded to the strange question, but once more Lady Manville's hand slapped the still reddened cheeks. Lily cried out in surprise and pain.

"That seems odd to you to be slapped like this, eh? ... But I must never be kept waiting an instant for an answer! Oh! you shall soon become better acquainted with Lady Manville, my girl! Answer! Won't you feel grateful for being soundly whipped?"

"Milady! I ... do not know...."

"You must know! You have been sufficiently disciplined to know that if you are whipped it is for your good, and that, consequently, you should consider yourself very well satisfied! Will you be?"

"Yes ... Milady...."

"Oh! cease this weeping and this senseless whining! Reserve your great chagrin for more serious occasions! You shall not find them lacking!"

She pulled from the interior of her fur wrap a little perfumed handkerchief and dried the girl's tears. Outside, a fresh thick snowstorm had started suddenly. The wind whistled into the interior of the coach, and the sound of the nearby sea could be heard dashing furiously against the rocky coast, adding to the infernal howling of the storm. Lady Manville experienced a voluptuous pleasure in finding herself sheltered from the unchained forces of nature. She tightened the girl more firmly against her knees, in a grip almost maternal, and this grip, coming after the slaps and threats, did not go astray in the profoundly troubled soul of Lily.

"How much better it is to be in the carriage now!" murmured the lady, as though talking to herself. "At the rate we are going, it should be fully two hours before we arrive at the manor."

Her eyes fell once again on Lily.

"You regret leaving the Training School, do you not?" she demanded, softening her voice a trifle. "Come! acknowledge it! I understand that very well! No doubt you left some close friend behind whom you think of affectionately, notwithstanding the very good discipline under which you were trained?"

Disturbed by this question, Lily could not retain her tears which fell anew.

"Yes, Milady!" she murmured.

"You regret leaving! And yet you told me they whipped you frequently there, is that not true?"

"Yes ... Milady ... but in spite of everything ... I had a good friend...."

Lady Manville's voice softened once more, became quite unctuous, indeed.

"One of the girls, no doubt? One of your companions?"

"Oh, no! Milady! ... A governess ... the one in charge of the laundry.... She liked me very much...."

"The one called Miss Evelyn, I believe?"

"Yes, Milady."

"It seems to me I heard them say that she was a disciplinarian of exemplary severity? That she was, in fact, one of the most capable chastisers in the school, which numbers quite a few, I am sure."

"Miss Evelyn was severe ... even with me, Milady ... but she loved me just the same."

"Then, my poor little thing, I understand your sorrow, for at my house you will have no one to love you!"

Lily raised her eyes on her new mistress, her big eyes, made more beautiful and touching by her tears, and her look had the air of saying: "And you, Milady? ... Will you not love me a little bit?"

But she found nothing in the hard and sensual face except eyes sparkling with irony and cruelty.

"No, indeed," repeated Lady Manville," you will have no one.... For in my home I do not tolerate any affection.... In my house everything is as rigid as can be. You are, all you who serve and wait upon me, nothing but my slaves! I have paid for you and for them, you are merely living objects that I own outright, obedient things that I discipline and punish according to my fancy. Everything moves to the sound of the whip! No recompense! Why should there be any when I can obtain everything by fear? For the least fault, the whip! In my house, Lily, your bottom will never have a chance to catch cold!"

The voice had recovered all its dryness, all its harshness, and Lily had the sensation that this woman played with her as a cat does with a mouse before devouring it.... She sensed herself horribly abandoned, the unhappiest of beings, and convulsive sobs shook her from head to foot.

"Ah! ah! you cry! you regret leaving the Training School, eh? You will regret it still more when we arrive home! Stupid child! to think that I am going to waste any affection on her! Your affections! ... I shall give you affections of a different sort! ... Keep quiet! I forbid you to cry stupidly like that! Enough, I told you! Are you going to obey me? ... Stop your crying, at once!"

She had taken the girl by the ears, as one would grasp a vase by its handles, and she pulled her head up, shaking it meanwhile and wresting cries of pain from the dear lost child whose tears redoubled.

"Oh! will you stop that crying? ... You are as stubborn as a mule, but I can promise you shall become the humblest thing imaginable, and quickly too, you miserable girl!"

She was intoxicated with fury and the desire to cause pain to her victim and to humiliate her in every conceivable way. She returned once more to the girl, pulling her again by the ears.

"Come! come! So much the worse for you! Right here in this carriage you are going to receive a whipping! ... If it were not snowing, I should take you out on the road and flog you at the nearest curb, on your knees and with your skirt up to your neck! ... Ah! are you trying to resist me?"

"No! oh! ... oooh! ... No ... Milady! ... pity! ... I am obeying ... I am obeying ... I ... am not resisting ... Milady! ... oh! ... pity! ... please don't harm me ... Milady!"

"Oh, stop your supplications. Come! ... Bend over my knees! I wish to see your bottom.... I wish to see it immediately so that I can spank it as it deserves ... if it's worth bothering with at all! ... ah! ... Why didn't I provide myself with a good whip before we left, Lily! How well I could use it now!"

She was a prey to a veritable hysterical crisis and had apparently lost all control of her passions. She abandoned herself to the savage joy of wounding this tender little heart that she divined was of unusual delicacy and exquisite sensitiveness-to lacerate the virgin flesh which was palpitating in its outraged modesty. Although pulled violently, Lily let herself be taken, with shame and, already, with suffering. She found herself suddenly couched across Lady Manville's knees, her head brushed the side of the coach and her feet were tucked under the seat because her legs could stretch no further than the inner wall of the opposite side of the carriage. Her hand gripped Lady Manville's cloak which fell over her powerful haunches.

The latter's lips, drawn back to the gums, seemed to leer like a panther crouching before the prey it is about to pull apart. With her two hands she tucked back the girl's mantle and skirt. And all at once, she discovered the flesh of her thighs, pink with the cold, and the snowy mass of the croupe whose satiny skin could not conceal the quivering of the muscles beneath. For an instant she remained transfixed before this spectacle. The customary color in her cheeks heightened and her nostrils throbbed with excitement.

"Oh!..." she exclaimed at last, "you are not wearing any drawers, you impudent, shameless girl! How did you dare leave your drawers off, eh?"

To hurry the response, she pinched the left buttock of the recumbent girl, who uttered a cry and burst into fresh tears:

"Oh! Milady! ... I haven't any! ... Forgive me, please, Milady ... pardon me!"

"You haven't any? ... They dressed you without drawers at the Training School?"

"Yes ... Milady."

"Oh! ... Indeed, that is an idea, and now I see why. They wanted you to be in a state of readiness, always, for whipping.... But I shall dress you quite differently, do you know that, Lily? You shall have bloomers, and very tight ones, very, very tight ones. They make the ceremony of undressing and preparing for a whipping much more humiliating, as you shall very soon see. For when I order you to come and be whipped, it is you, you alone, who shall have to unfasten and take down your bloomers so that you can properly offer your bottom to the whip! Do you understand?"

"Yes, Milady! Please have pity on me."

"Oh! pity! You ask me to have pity! ... You shall see before many days have passed that sentiment is totally absent from my discipline. I know just what has to be done to obtain perfect obedience, perfect service! I have no pity for my slaves, indeed not! ... Ah! ... why was I not born in Nero's time! What pleasures I should have had from my slaves! They should have danced to the crack of the whip, all day long! I should have had some of them whipped to death, my love!"

"You are going to remember your debut at Sloane, eh?" she said

"Milady! Pity! Mercy! ... Oh, I shall go mad!..."

"I shall cure you! ... Don't you know that not so long ago they used to cure insanity that way ... why have they changed the method? The whip is a universal remedy! Why have they begun to abandon this good old custom? ... You shiver, you wretched child, don't you? This discourse annoys you, doesn't it, while your bare bottom remains exposed awaiting the beautiful warming it is going to receive? That's very humiliating to you, isn't it? ... Yes, no doubt, and it is just because I am aware of it that I wish to prolong your anguish! ... I have a good mind to make you remain like this until we reach our destination! A little spanking every few minutes will ensure your bottom remaining warm and it will not be in danger of catching cold itself. Besides, my own knees have been really cold, and this way you can keep them warm. Excellent idea, indeed ... I think I shall begin whipping you now, Lily! Are you ready for your whipping? Come, my still inexperienced little slave, prepare to submit your bottom to the most humiliating and infamous chastisement that exists!"

In the matter of chastisement, at least, Lily was far from inexperienced. She was not, as we already know, at the beginning of her studies in the way these things were arranged for her, but before this flood of words, before this indisputably refined fashion of beginning a whipping, she felt herself burning up with shame. Not even her first whipping had shocked her modesty, produced such terrors, released such strange emotions, as this discourse and her present position stirred up. No, this was infinitely worse than the first time, when Miss Evelyn and Mrs. Wharton had drawn her across their knees and flagellated her behind....

She gasped. Her posterior muscles contracted in the expectation of the baking they were about to undergo, and then, wearily, they abandoned themselves only to retighten anew:

"I am going to show you that I know how to whip a wicked and stupid girl, Lily!" resumed Lady Manville, "and you are going to tell me when I have finished whether I whip better than Mrs. Wharton! I shall look for your interesting opinion on that subject, remember!"

She grazed with a light tap the suddenly bulging rotundities and uttered a little grumble of satisfaction, then, suddenly, she raised her arm and applied the first slap with all her strength. The entire mass of the fleshy region shivered and at once a deep red mark appeared where the first blow had landed. Others followed, hurried, burning, numerous, and Lily quivered wildly, emitting groans, sobs and pleas, while she tried from time to time to bring one of her little hands around to her smarting buttocks in a forlorn effort to protect them, but the gesture only succeeded in redoubling the severity of the noble lady.

"Will you keep your hands in front of you where they belong? Is this the sort of docility you have been trained to?" she complained. "Is it? Is it? So you were trying to revolt! That is revolt, my dear! And signs of revolt are vigorously punished! ... Here! Here! Here! Oh! how I wish I had a good whip handy or an excellent tawse such as we have at home! Ah! ... I should make you squirm beautifully for that! Here! Here! Here! And here's another and still a better one! Cry! cry! cry! you wicked child! Your tears are an encouragement to me-and a satisfaction!..."

She whipped on furiously during some minutes, seeming certainly to have forgotten where he was, and the circumstances of the correction so hypnotized her that the sight of the movements made by the croupe she was spanking and the words she was expressing, as she proceeded, absolutely intoxicated her.

And then she stopped and took a long breath....

She passed her hand across her forehead and wiped off the perspiration. It was burning from the furious contacts it had made, and at last she appeared to take cognizance of herself. She looked down on the reddened posterior, now shading to violet, so thoroughly had she beaten it, then she turned the girl's congested face half way around and looked at her exhausted victim.

"Well now, my dear," she said, "how did you find the whipping I just gave you? Better than Mrs. Wharton's or less severe?"

Lily was certainly incapable of responding, even if she had been willing, for her sobbing was choking her. She made a gesture of supplication accompanied by an expression of intense despair, but a fresh slap warned her of the importance of responding promptly when her mistress interrogated her.

"Whose whipping would you say is more thorough, mine or Mrs. Wharton's? Answer promptly, or I shall let you have some more!"

"Yours ... Milady," stuttered Lily.

"Answer in more precise fashion! Are you afraid of committing yourself, perhaps?"

"Yes, Milady ... I think ... you whipped me more thoroughly ... than Mrs. Wharton...."

"More effectively, don't you think?"

"Yes, Milady...."

"Does it bake more, smart more?"

"Yes ... Milady."

"And whose whippings do you think will do the most good in training you properly, mine or hers?"

"Yours ... Milady."

"Yours what? I told you to be more precise. Listen to me carefully, Lily. When I whip my slaves I frequently ask many questions during and after each whipping and I require full, prompt, detailed answers. If you have any regard for your bottom you had better listen to my warning. For if you answer haltingly, one word at a time, I shall understand it as a request from you for two whippings instead of the one intended originally, and you may rely on me to grant your request immediately. Now, do you wish to answer the last question?"

"Yes, Milady ... I do. Please forgive me ... I think when you whip me ... My training will be better than what I received from Mrs. Wharton, Milady."

Her sobbing still interrupted her responses and this interrogation was a torture more painful, perhaps than the spanking itself.

"At last!" exclaimed Lady Manville. "I am enchanted to find you share my opinion. And you will show your eagerness to be punished, as my other maids do, whenever you make a mistake?"

"Yes, Milady, I shall...."

She made Lily continue to lie across her lap, but with her skirt still turned back. The girl was shivering in all her extremities, and her mistress did not withdraw her hands from those fleshy parts which were burning as the result of the smacking.

"You are going to remain in this position for a while, and after that you shall rest on your knees before me," she said. "It is very humiliating, of course, but humiliation is extremely profitable to those in your station. I shall see to it you do not catch cold down below."

The carriage continued to roll on. Lily, breathless, remained bent across the lap of her mistress, the upper part of her body slumped forward, bowed down by the weight of her misery. Her mind was blank, it was impossible for her to think. The conflict of despair, shame, fear, suffering, physical and moral revolt, annihilated all possibility of ordered thinking. She was as one unconscious. From time to time only a great sob would shake her whole body, then Lady Manville would maternally slap her behind once or twice to remind her, as it were, to be patient and submissive.

"Be good, Lily. You are not cold, are you?"

"No, Milady..." murmured Lily in a dying voice.

A new silence established itself. Thus a half-hour passed. A half-hour! Let one imagine if one can what such a lapse of time must have meant for a person in Lily's position!...

There were certainly good reasons for her going mad. And perhaps that would have been exactly the result were it not for the fact that she had gone through relatively similar experiences and punishments at the Training School.

At the end of the half-hour Lady Manville placed her hand on Lily's bare flesh and frowned. Instead of the glowing heat she had felt there previously there was now but a faint warmth, scarcely perceptible, and even the purplish color visible awhile ago, on each buttock, had little by little faded into a pale pink.

"Lily," said Lady Manville, "you are commencing to get cold, aren't you?"

"No, Milady ... please pardon me, Milady. Oh, please! I am not cold," demurred Lily, shivering.

"Are you a liar, too, by any chance?" the lady inquired severely. "I say that you are getting cold!"

"Milady!" implored Lily pitifully, suspecting a fresh chastisement suspending itself over her posterior.

"Oh! you do not want to admit it, you miserable thing! And they gave me to understand you were as docile and submissive as one could wish! I can see that either they have deceived me or they have deceived themselves. But I shall take it on myself to complete your education! I am going to give you a good whipping, Lily!"

"Milady! Oh! ... Have pity!"...

Lady Manville had already raised her hand to spank Lily when suddenly the carriage stopped. She pulled the girl's skirt down quickly and straightened herself at once. Lily moved over painfully on the right of her mistress, completely broken.

The door was being opened and the coachman, transformed into a Santa Claus by the snow which covered his mantle and his fur cap, presented himself.

"What is it, Joe?" inquired Lady Manville.

"We are at the half-way inn, Milady," he answered. "We can feed the horses and give them some rest. Would Milady care to enter and take something warm?"

"Thanks, Joe. That's that. We shall come in, I and my maid. Order two cups of hot tea and toast."