“Not so much now,” she answered. “They were beginning to hurt a great deal, though.”
“Were they, though?” said Deede Dawson. “And to think you might have been like that for hours if I hadn't chanced to come home. Too bad, what a brute this fellow is.”
“Men mostly are, I think,” she observed indifferently.
“And women mostly like to get their own back again,” he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned sharply to Dunn. “Well, my man,” he asked, “what have you got to say for yourself?”
“Nothing,” Dunn answered. “It was a fair cop.”
“You've had a taste of penal servitude before, I suppose?” Deede Dawson asked.
“Maybe,” Dunn answered, as if not wishing to betray himself. “Maybe not.”
“Well, I think I remember you said something about not being long out of Dartmoor,” remarked Deede Dawson. “How do you relish the prospect of going back there?”
“I wonder,” interposed Ella thoughtfully. “I wonder what it is in you that makes you so love to be cruel, father?”
“Eh what?” he exclaimed, quite surprised. “Who's being cruel?”