They were terrible moments for Avery that she spent outside that locked door, listening impotently to a child's piteous cries for mercy from one who knew it not. But they came to an end at last. Gracie's distress sank into anguished sobs, and Avery knew that the punishment was over. Mr. Lorimer had satisfied both his sense of duty and his malice.
She heard him speak in cold, cutting tones. "I have punished you more severely than I had ever expected to find necessary, and I hope that the lesson will be sufficient. But I warn you, Grace, most solemnly that I shall watch your behaviour very closely for the future, and if I detect in you the smallest indication of the insolence and defiance for which I have inflicted this punishment upon you to-day I shall repeat the punishment fourfold. No! Not another word!" as Gracie made some inarticulate utterance. "Or you will compel me to repeat it to-night!"
And with that, he walked quietly to the door and unlocked it.
Avery had ceased to beat upon it; she met him white and stiff in the doorway.
"I have just sent for the doctor," she said. "Mrs. Lorimer has been taken ill."
She passed him at once with the words, not looking at him, for she could not trust herself. Straight to Gracie, huddled on the floor in her night-dress, she went, and lifted the child bodily to her bed.
Gracie clung to her, sobbing passionately. Mr. Lorimer lingered in the doorway.
"Will you go, please?" said Avery, tight-lipped and rigid, the child clasped to her throbbing heart.
It was a definite command, spoken in a tone that almost compelled compliance, and Mr. Lorimer lingered no more.
Then for one long minute Avery sat and rocked the poor little tortured body in her arms.