ago when she was a little kid, and, my eye, didn't she catch it when she
came back! She never did it again--till now."

"And you are going to the station to look for her?" Scott's voice was
dead level. He calmed the restive horse with a firm hand.

"Yes; just to find out if she's gone by train. I don't believe she has,
you know. She's nowhere to go to. I expect she's hiding up in the woods
somewhere. I shall scour the country afterwards; for the longer she stays
away the worse it'll be for her. I'm sure of that," said Billy uneasily.
"When the mater lays hands on her again, she'll simply flay her."

"She will not do anything of the sort," said Scott, and turned his
horse's head with resolution. "Come along and find her first! I will deal
with your mother afterwards."

Billy mounted his bicycle and accompanied him. Though he did not see how
Scott was to prevent any further vengeance on his mother's part, it was a
considerable relief to feel that he had enlisted a champion on his
sister's behalf. For he was genuinely troubled about her, although the
cruel discipline to which she had been subjected all her life had so
accustomed him to seeing her in trouble that it affected him less than if
it had been a matter of less frequent occurrence.

Scott's reception of his information had somewhat awed him. Like Dinah,
he had long ceased to look upon this man as insignificant. He rode beside
him in respectful silence.

The country lane they followed crossed the railway by a bridge ere it ran
into the station road. There was a steep embankment on each side of the
line surmounted by woods, and as they reached the bridge Billy dismounted
to gaze searchingly into the trees.

"She might be anywhere" he said. "This is a favourite place of hers
because the wind-flowers grow here. Somehow I've got a sort of
feeling--" He stopped short. "Why, there she is!" he exclaimed.

Scott looked sharply in the same direction. Had he been alone, he would
not have perceived her, for she was crouched low against a thicket of
brambles and stunted trees midway down the embankment. She was clad in an
old brown mackintosh that so toned with her surroundings as to render her
almost invisible. Her chin was resting on her knees, and her face was
turned from them. She seemed to be gazing up the line.

As they watched her, a signal near the bridge went down with a thud, and
it seemed to Scott that the little huddled figure started and stiffened
like a