d Dinah?" said Scott. The question leapt from him almost
involuntarily. He had not meant to display any eagerness, and he sought
to cover it by his next words which were uttered with his usual careful
deliberation. "It's Dinah I have come to see. I have a message for her
from my sister."

Billy's freckled face crumpled into troubled lines. "Dinah has cleared
out," he said briefly. "I'm just off to the station to try and get news
of her."

"What?" Scott said, startled.

The boy looked at him, his green eyes shrewdly confiding. "There's been
the devil of a row," he said. "The mater is furious with her. She gave
her a fearful licking last night to judge by the sounds. Dinah was
squealing like a rat. Of course girls always do squeal when they're hurt,
but I fancy the mater must have hit a bit harder than usual. And she's
burnt the whole of the trousseau too. Dinah was so mighty proud of all
her fine things. She'd feel that, you know, pretty badly."

"Damnation!" Scott said, and for the second time he spoke without his own
volition. He looked at Billy with that intense hot light in his eyes that
had in it the whiteness of molten metal. "Do you mean that?" he said.
"Do you actually mean that your mother flogged her--flogged Dinah?"

Billy nodded. "It's just her way," he explained half-apologetically.
"The mater is like that. She's rough and ready. She's always done it to
Dinah, had a sort of down on her for some reason. I guessed she meant
business last night when I saw the dog-whip had gone out of the hall. I
wished afterwards I'd thought to hide it, for it's rather a beastly
implement. But the mater's a difficult woman to baulk. And when she's in
that mood, it's almost better to let her have her own way. She's sure to
get it sooner or later, and a thing of that sort doesn't improve with
keeping."

So spoke Billy with the philosophy of middle-aged youth, while the man
beside him sat with clenched hands and faced the hateful vision of Dinah,
the fairy-footed and gay of heart, writhing under that horrible and
humiliating punishment.

He spoke at length, and some electricity within him made the animal under
him fidget and prance, for he stirred neither hand nor foot. "And you
tell me Dinah has run away?"

"Yes, cleared out," said Billy tersely. "It was an idiotic thing to do,
for the mater is downright savage this morning, and she'll only give her
another hiding for her pains. She stayed away all day once before, years