It was soon after nine on the following morning that Scott presented himself on horseback at the gate of Dinah's home. It had been his intention to tie up his animal and enter, but he was met in the entrance by Billy coming out on a bicycle, and the boy at once frustrated his intention.
"Good morning, sir! Pleased to see you, but it's no good your coming in. The pater's still in bed, and the mater's doing the house-work."
"And 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."