She ran out of the parlour, up the two flights of stairs and along a dark winding corridor, still guided by the screams. At the end of the corridor she found Susannah, pale, wringing her hands, outside a door which, however, she made no attempt to enter.
"Oh, miss, he's killing her!"
"Is the door locked?" panted Hester, at the same time flinging her weight against it as she turned the handle. It flew open, and she confronted— not Myra, but Mr. Sam.
He stood between her and the window with an arm uplifted and in his hand a leathern strap; and while she recoiled for an instant, the strap descended across the naked back and shoulders of little Clem, who drooped under it with bowed knees, helpless, his arms extended, his wrists bound together and lashed to the bed-post. The child made no sound. The piercing screams came not from him, but from an inner room—Myra's bedroom—and from behind a closed door.
"You shall not!" Hester flung herself forward, shielding the child from another blow. "Oh, what wickedness are you doing! What horrible wickedness!"
Mr. Sam had raised his arm again. The man indeed seemed to be transported with passion, with sheer lust of cruelty. It is doubtful if he had heard her enter. His dark face twitched distortedly in the fading light.
"I'll teach him—I'll teach him!" he panted.
"You shall not!" Hester, covering the child's limp body, could not see his face, but her eyes fell on his little shirt, ripped from neckband to flap, and lying on the floor as it had been torn from his body and tossed aside. She called to Susannah, still lingering doubtfully outside upon the mat, and pointed to the door behind Mr. Sam. Susannah plucked up courage, stepped across and turned the key. An instant later, like a small wild beast uncaged, Myra came springing and crouched beside her brother, facing his tormentor with blazing eyes.
Hester, catching sight of the housekeeper's scissors which Susannah wore at her waist, motioned to her to cut the cords binding Clem's wrists. Mr. Sam made no effort to oppose her, but stood panting, with one hand resting on the dressing-table. Susannah managed indeed to detach the scissors, but held them out falteringly, as though in sheer terror declining all responsibility.
"Give them to me, then."