Deirdre's eyes sparkled with anger.
"Oh," she gasped, breathlessly, "how dare you, Davey? How dare you?"
Davey, morose anger in his eyes, stared at her.
"You're angry because he let me go out last night," she said. "Don't you know he's almost helpless, that he can just see dimly in the broad daylight. All the world's going dark to him, and it's breaking his heart—eating the strength and the soul and the courage out of him, to stand by and let others do things for him."
Consciousness of what he had done came slowly to Davey.
"Oh, it was mean and cruel and cowardly to hurt him like that!" Deirdre cried passionately, and ran out into the sunshine after her father.
When she came back into the hut Davey, with a tense white face, was standing near the door.
"I ought to be flayed alive—but I didn't know, I didn't understand," he said.
There was no quieting or comforting him.
"Will he ever forgive me? Do you think he will, Deirdre?" His face was clammy with the sweat of weakness. "It was more than Conal did—that. Conal wouldn't have done it."