off.
"But I'm not going," she said, and her voice was flat and hard again.
"Even you can't make me do that. There'll be another express this
afternoon."

Scott knelt down beside her, and took her bowed head on to his shoulder.
"Listen to me, Dinah!" he said. "I am going to help you, and you mustn't
try to prevent me. If you had only allowed me, I would have gone home
again with you yesterday, and this might have been avoided. My dear,
don't draw yourself away from me! Don't you know I am a friend you can
trust?"

The pitiful tenderness of his voice reached her, overwhelming her first
instinctive effort to draw back. She leaned against him with painful,
long-drawn sobs.

He held her closely to him with all a woman's understanding. "Oh, don't
cry any more, child!" he said. "You're worn out with crying."

"I feel--so bad--so bad!" sobbed Dinah.

"Yes, yes. I know. Of course you do. But it's over, it's over. No one
shall hurt you any more."

"You don't--understand," breathed Dinah. "It never will be over--while I
live. I'm hurt inside--inside."

"I know," he said again. "But it will get better presently. Isabel and I
are going to take you away from it all."

"Oh no!" she said quickly. "No--no--no!" She lifted her head from his
shoulder and turned her poor, stained face upwards. "I couldn't do that!"
she said. "I couldn't! I couldn't!"

"Wait!" he said gently. "Let me do what I can to help you now--before we
talk of that! Will you sit here quietly for a little, while I go and get
you some milk from that farm down the road?"

"I don't want it," she said.

"But I want you to have it," he made grave reply. "You will stay here?
Promise me!"

"Very well," she assented miserably.

He got up. "I shan't be gone long. Sit quite still till I come back!"

He touched her dark head comfortingly and turned away.

When he had gone a little distance he looked back, and saw that she was
crouched upon the ground again and crying with bitter, straining sobs
that convulsed her as though they would rend her from head to foot. With
tightened lips he hastened on his way.

She had suffered a cruel punishment it was evident, and she was utterly
worn out in body and spirit. But was it only the ordeal of yesterday and
the physical penalty that she had been made to pay that had broken her
thus?

He could not tell, but his heart bled for her misery and desolation.

"Who is the other fellow?" he asked himself. "I wonder if Billy k