."

It was so coarse, so brutal, so untrue, that the girl met him once in his
life as he deserved.

"Keep your cows," she said in the low tones of concentrated bitterness. "I
don't want them, nor money from you. I don't owe you anything, either.
I've done more work and furnished you more money than ever I cost you
since the day I was born. I knew no one could explain anything to you. I
told ma so, but she's afraid for her life of you, and insisted. I've tried
to keep the peace with you, really, but no one ever has or ever will be
able to do that. I'll let you alone after this."

"You damned huzzy!" the now thoroughly aroused man exclaimed, lunging
forward to strike her with his open hand. He had only listened to her so
far because there had been something so compelling in the rush of her
words that he had been stupefied by astonishment into doing so.

Patsie, who was in line with the blow, reared and threw herself against
her mate, knowing what that tone of her master's voice indicated, and his
hands were so occupied for a few seconds in quieting the team that he
could not follow his daughter and administer the chastisement he wished.

"I'll thrash you within an inch of your life!" he cried, however, when he
saw her disappearing through the open door of the house.

"Now, and what have you done?" Mrs. Farnshaw demanded when the breathless
girl pushed rapidly past her at the inner door and faced about defiantly
in the middle of the kitchen.

"I don't want to hear another word about it, ever. I've done it about as
bad as I could, I guess, but I'll never take another whipping from him,
and you needn't expect it."

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," she moaned after the family had
gone, referring to the figurative speech, "She's afraid for her life of
you." That had been meant in a very different sense. The girl would have
given much to have unsaid it, to have given any sort of explanation.

It was not possible to explain anything to Josiah Farnshaw, and
remembering the threat to flog her as soon as he returned from meeting,
Elizabeth began to put up her hair and prepare for the departure which was
her only way of escape. Josiah Farnshaw never forgot a promise of that
sort.

"I'll go to Aunt Susan's," she resolved, and as soon as she could get her
dress changed and a few things thrown quickly into the trunk which she had
partially unpacked the day before, Elizabeth took her parasol and started
toward the south