Mavis looked up quickly.
"Come along, you brute!" cried Lowther, who seized the spaniel by the ear, and, despite its yell of agony, was carrying it by this means from the room.
Mavis felt the blood rush to her head.
"Stop!" she cried.
Lowther turned to look at her.
"Stop—, please don't," she pleaded, as she went quickly to Jill and caught her in her arms.
Lowther looked down, surprised, into Mavis's pleading, yet defiant face.
"It was all my fault: you're hurting her and she's such a dear," continued Mavis.
"Better let her stay," said Devitt, while Mrs Devitt, seeing the girl's flushed face, recalled the passage in Miss Mee's letter which referred to Mavis's sudden anger.
Mrs Devitt hated a display of emotion; she put down Mavis's interference with Lowther's design to bad form. She was surprised that Lowther and her husband were so assiduous in their attentions to Mavis; indeed, as Mrs Devitt afterwards remarked to Miss Spraggs: