"Perhaps ye are a bit," said Raynes. "I'm not going to be angry, but ye'll get your whipping all the same."
"Oh, dad, oh, dad——"
"Yes, child, there's no escape; just hold on to the foot of the bed and bare your two arms and your shoulders. I don't hold with girls who want to injure other girls. Now for every time you cry out you'll get an extra stroke, so keep as quiet as you can."
Tilly knew there was no help for it. Her father had brought a light, keen-looking cane into the room with him. She had seen it when he had given her the letter to read. He slashed right, he slashed left,—she kept back her screams. After a time she was strangely still, she had fainted.
Then Mary Ann came up and comforted and petted her and put her back to bed and eased her sores by some very delicate ointment. No one else was in the least inclined to be kind. Two days afterwards, however, Raynes entered his daughter's bedroom.
"There isn't the making of a lady in you, Tilly," he said, "and I'm not going to send you back to Arles any more. There's a cheap school for your sort of girl close by, and you can help your stepmother when you are not working at school, and by the time you are sixteen you'll be sitting in my coal-office taking down orders for tons and tons of coal. No more Arles or French, or fine ladies for you! Bless my soul, you are a mean little thing! But now I want to get at the truth of this. Tell me every blessed thing you know about that kind girl you call the little shopkeeper."
Tilly did tell her story. She told it graphically and even with her father's stern eyes fixed on her face, with a certain amount of correctness. She had bought hats and robes from la petite Comtesse and the old man the Comte St. Juste didn't know, and the old man The Desmond in Ireland didn't know.
"You are sure of your facts?" said Raynes, when she had stopped.
"Yes, I'm quite positive sure."
"That's all right then. I punished you, my girl, because you did a mean and cruel thing, but I'm not going to let the little shopgirl get off Scot free. I can't talk parlez-vous, so I'm going straight to Ireland to-night, where I'll tell the entire story to those folks who think themselves so fine. You needn't begin your school-life, my girl, till I come back. This has got to be seen to and I'm the man for the job."