Mary Anne laughed disobediently.
"I shall go if Captain Copp comes for me, mademoiselle."
Mademoiselle wrung her hands.
"I will go and find Mr. Richard. He is master here when the justice is not. I will lay the case before him and say, 'What am I to do with this rebellions child?'"
She quitted the room on her search. Miss Thornycroft went to the window and leaned out, wishing herself once more the preventive man, or anybody else who had not a governess. At that moment she saw her brother Isaac go running on to the plateau from the direction of the village, stand a minute talking with the coastguardsman, and then come vaulting down towards the house. It has not been mentioned that a line of light railings enclosed the plateau below the round tower--a boundary line between it and the Red Court grounds. Isaac Thornycroft leaped the railings, and saw his sister. She called to him in a voice of earnestness; he came round to the front entrance and entered the room.
Handsome in his careless grace, and bright as the summer's morning. He wore light cool clothes, his linen was curiously white and fine; looking altogether, as he always did, a noble gentleman. Richard would be in coarse things, unbrushed and shabby, for a week together; the brothers had quite opposite instincts.
Mary Anne went up to him with a pleading voice and tears in her eyes, all her assumption of will gone.
"Oh, Isaac!--dear Isaac! won't you help me? You are always kind."
"My little dove! what is it?"
She told her tale. Her engagement with Captain and Mrs. Copp, and mademoiselle's cruel hardheartedness. Isaac laughed outright.