The next minute she was staggering across the kitchen from a violent blow on the side of her head, and then, before she could recover herself or realise what had happened, her aunt was beside her again, raining down blow after blow upon her thin shoulders.
"Take that, and that, and that!" gasped the infuriated woman; "and now go out and tell every one. And there's another to teach you to speak properly to me, or you or I leave this house!"
How long the blows would have continued to pour down on Bella no one knows, had not scream upon scream suddenly rent the air, startling every one near.
They did not come from Bella herself, for, after the first startled cry, she made no sound. They came from the three children who had reached home just in time to be witnesses of the terrible scene, and were frightened almost out of their senses.
Miss Hender dropped her uplifted hand and sank exhausted and speechless into a chair. Bella, white and almost fainting, lay on the floor motionless. At sight of her Charlie began to scream again. "You've killed our Bella! You've killed our Bella!" he cried, while Margery ran over to the still heap on the floor. "Bella, look up, look up! Bella, it's me, it's Margery; speak to Margery!" Tears poured down her little white cheeks, and one, falling on Bella's, roused her. Putting out one stiff, aching arm, she feebly drew her little sister to her and kissed her.
Margery was delighted, for she had really thought Bella was dead, and she hugged her in an ecstasy of relief. "Can't you get up?" she asked. "Oh, do get up, Bella."
Bella made an effort but she was too exhausted, and falling back again, she, for the first time, lost consciousness.
And so, when Tom presently arrived with his father, whom he had rushed at once to fetch, they found her, with Margery beside her weeping and beseeching her to speak; Charlie standing at the door, too scared to go nearer; and Miss Hender seated, white and frightened and ashamed, gazing at her temper's handiwork, too ashamed to go near to render the child any aid after reducing her to that, for in her heart of hearts she felt that after the scene of that afternoon Bella would shrink from even a kindness at her hands.
Without a word the father strode across and picked his little daughter up. "Get some water," he said, in a low, hoarse voice to Tom, and, still holding her in his arms, he bathed the brow and the limp, lifeless hands, and the pale cheeks, where the scarlet patch across one told its own tale.
Emma Hender rose stiffly from her chair and handed him a soft cloth, but he would not take it from her. "Keep away!" he said harshly; "don't you dare to touch her again. You've done enough harm for one day, you and that temper of yours!" Emma Hender shrank back without a word, then, after a moment's struggle for self-control, dropped into a chair and burying her face in her apron burst into violent weeping. She was so tired, so faint, and so ashamed of herself, and no one cared, she thought bitterly; no one cared for her, or believed her, or pitied her.