"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 knows."
He found Billy awaiting him in the road, anxious and somewhat reproachful. "You've been such a deuce of a time," he said. "Is she all right?"
"She is very upset," he made answer. "And she is faint too for want of food."
"That's not surprising," commented Billy. "She can't have had anything since lunch yesterday. What shall I do? Run home and get something? The mater can't want her to starve."
"No." Scott's voice rang on a hard note. "She probably doesn't. But you needn't go home for it. Run back to that farm we passed just now, and see if you can get some hot milk! Be quick like a good chap! Here's the money! I'll wait here."
Billy seized his bicycle and departed on his errand.
Scott began to walk his horse up and down, for inactivity was unbearable. Every moment he spent away from poor, broken Dinah was torturing. Those dreadful, hopeless tears of hers filled him with foreboding. He yearned to return.
Billy's absence lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, and he was beginning to get desperate over the delay when at last the boy returned carrying a can of milk and a mug.