“That was Evelyn’s case. She was a helpless child in the hands of a brute. There was no way in which she could secure protection from any wrong he might see fit to do her. So, when he came with evident intent to do her harm, she had a perfect right, I think, to fight for herself in any way she could. No human being is under obligation to submit to an insult or a blow.
“Besides—well, never mind that. I was thinking of the way in which we all recognise killing in war as entirely legitimate. But that is a large subject, which I haven’t thought out to the end as yet. For the present purpose it is enough to know that Evelyn had a right to make such war as she could—poor little mite of a girl that she was—upon that brutal man. I should have done the same under like circumstances. Yes; I heartily approve her conduct.”
With that, Dorothy turned again to the manuscript, and read what follows:—
Chapter the Sixth
I HAD hurt Campbell very badly indeed. I had shattered the bridge of his nose to bits, and there was a great commotion in the house—sending for a lot of doctors, and all that. My mother thought of nothing but staunching the blood and getting the doctors there. The servants were all excited and running about bringing hot water and towels and so forth, so that no attention was paid to me.
I took advantage of the confusion. I put on a little cloak and my sun-bonnet, and quietly slipped out through one of the back doors into the grounds. Then I called my dog, Prince, to go with me, and in the gloaming—for it was nearly nightfall—he and I waded across the little creek that ran at the back of the place. The house stood at the extreme edge of the little city, and there was no town on the farther side of the creek. So Prince and I went on down the road, meeting nobody.
My grandmother had left the town that day, to go back to her home somewhere in the East, so I made up my mind to walk toward the East every day till I should come to the village where she lived. I knew the name of the village, but I didn’t know what State it was in or how far away it might be; still, I hoped to find it after a while, by inquiring of people. But I feared a search would be made for me, so I decided not to reveal myself by making inquiries till I should be far away from the town where Campbell and my mother lived.
After walking along the road for what seemed to me many hours, Prince and I climbed over a fence and went far into the woods. There we hid ourselves in a clump of pawpaw bushes and went to sleep.
When we woke, there was a heavy rain falling, and we were very, very hungry. So we set out to find a road somewhere, so that we might come to a house and ask for something to eat. But there didn’t seem to be any end to the woods. We went on and on and on, without coming out anywhere. I ate two pawpaws that I found on the bushes, but poor Prince couldn’t eat pawpaws, so he had to go starving.