Her hold relaxed.  “Even a dog has his rights,” she said.  “Give me that whip, please!”

He looked at her oddly in the growing darkness.  She was trembling as she stood, but she held her ground.

“Please!” she repeated with resolution.

With an abrupt movement he put the weapon into her hand.  “Are you going to give me a taste?” he asked.

She uttered a queer little gasping laugh.  “No.  I—­I’m not that sort.  But—­it’s horrible to see a man lose control of himself.  And to thrash a dog—­like that!”

She turned sharply from him and went to the Dalmatian who crouched quaking on the path.  He wagged an ingratiating tail at her approach.  It was evident that in her hand the whip had no terrors for him.  He crept fawning to her feet.

She stooped over him, fondling his head.  “Oh, poor boy!  Poor boy!” she said.

The dog’s master came and stood beside her.  “He’ll be all right,” he said, in a tone of half-surly apology.

“I’m afraid Mike has bitten him,” she said.  “See!” displaying a long, dark streak on Caesar’s neck.

“He’ll be all right,” repeated Caesar’s master.  “I hope your dog is none the worse.”

“No, I don’t think so,” she said.  “But don’t you think we ought to bathe this?”

“I’ll take him home,” he said.  “They’ll see to him at the stables.”

She stood up, a slim, erect figure, the whip still firmly grasped in her hand.  “You won’t thrash him any more, will you?” she said.

He gave a short laugh.  “No, you have cooled me down quite effectually.  I’m much obliged to you for interfering.  And I’m sorry I used language, but as the circumstances were exceptional, I hope you will make allowances.”

His tone was boyish still, but all the resentment had gone out of it.  There was a touch of arrogance in his bearing which was obviously natural to him, but his apology was none the less sincere.

The slim figure on the path made a slight movement of dismay.  “But you must be drenched to the skin!” she said.  “I was forgetting.  Won’t you come in and get dry?”

He hunched his shoulders expressively.  “No, thanks.  It was my own fault, as you kindly omit to mention.  I must be getting back to the Abbey.  My grandfather is expecting me.  He fidgets if I’m late.”

He raised a hand to his cap, and would have turned away, but she made a swift gesture of surprise, which arrested him.  “Oh, you are young Mr. Evesham!—­I beg your pardon—­you are Mr. Evesham!  I thought I must have seen you before!”

He stopped with a laugh.  “I am commonly called ‘Master Piers’ in this neighbourhood.  They won’t let me grow up.  Rather a shame, what?  I’m nearly twenty-five, and the head-keeper still refers to me in private as ‘that dratted boy.’”

She laughed for the first time.  Possibly he had angled for that laugh.  “Yes, it is a shame!” she agreed.  “But then Sir Beverley is rather old, isn’t he?  No doubt it’s the comparison that does it.”