Millie, whose eyes were fixed in deep, increasing interest on the country they were passing through, looked up.
"It was the old woman," she said. "I thought Mr. Mayne might have told you. She sjambokked me pretty nearly to death, and threw me down and dislocated my arm."
The clear, soft voice, evenly cadenced, giving out this astonishing information, raised fresh tumult in the vicar's bosom.
"Do you mean your step-mother?" he asked, in horror.
"Yes. Mr. Mayne had to go to Leitersdorp to get the will proved. He was away three days, and she made up her mind to take it out on me."
"To take what out?"
"She was mad because father made him my guardian. She wanted to sell me to a Yankee; he'd given her ten pounds on account. So Mr. Mayne told her it was a case of hands off, because it was his show. So she got the children to catch and hold me, and they managed to tie me up; and she just went on until she was tired," said Millie unemotionally.
The vicar had no words. Uppermost in his mind was deep, abiding thankfulness that he had brought none of his daughters with him to meet this astounding young person. What would his wife say to this? Such people, they knew, existed in the pages of those sensational novels which cannot be too severely condemned by the well-regulated; but that his own sister's child should have been strung up and thrashed! ... The current of hot sympathy in him must have found vent in indignant words; but it was invaded by another thought. The carefully guarded propriety of his own children must suffer no contact with naked facts of life like this; and such was the feeling that spoke first.
"I must ask you not to mention this. I should say, I must order you not to tell your cousins, or Miss Lathom, their governess, how you came by your injuries. To your aunt, in private, it may be alluded to, but I cannot have so scandalous a thing generally known."
Millie looked up swiftly.