Ranald came to help her in his quiet, gentlemanly way, dabbing up the thick brown stream with his table-napkin.  Pat slipped round to his mother and hugged her hard.  And Olive, the only unmoved member of the party, looked on with contemptuous eyes the while she continued her breakfast.  Jeanie still breakfasted upstairs in the schoolroom, and so missed the fracas.

“The place is a pig-sty!” declared Mr. Lorimer, roused out of all complacence and casting dainty phraseology to the winds.  “And you, sir,”—­he addressed his second son,—­“wholly unfit for civilized society.  Go upstairs, and—­if you have any appetite left after this disgusting exhibition—­satisfy it in the nursery!”

Julian, crimson but wholly unashamed, flung up his head defiantly and walked to the door.

“Stop!” commanded Mr. Lorimer, ere he reached it.

Julian stopped.

His father looked him up and down with gradually returning composure.  “You will not go to the nursery,” he said.  “You will go to the study and there suffer the penalty for insolence.”

“Stephen!” broke from Mrs. Lorimer in anguished protest.

“A beastly shame!” cried Gracie vehemently, flinging discretion to the winds; she adored her brother Julian.  “He never spoke a single word!”

“Go, Julian!” said Mr. Lorimer.

Julian went, banging the door vigorously behind him.

Then, amid an awful silence, the Vicar turned his scrutiny upon his small daughter.

Gracie stood up under it with all the courage at her disposal, but she was white to the lips before that dreadful gaze passed from her to Avery.

“Mrs. Denys,” said Mr. Lorimer, in tones of icy courtesy, “will you oblige me by taking that child upstairs, undressing her, and putting her to bed?  She will remain there until I come.”

Avery, her task accomplished, turned and faced him.  She was as white as Gracie, but there was a steadfast light in her eyes that showed her wholly unafraid.

“Mr. Lorimer,” she said, “with your permission I will deal with Gracie.  She has done wrong, I know.  By-and-bye, she will be sorry and tell you so.”

Mr. Lorimer smiled sarcastically.  “An apology, my dear Mrs. Denys, does not condone the offence.  It is wholly against my principles to spare the rod when it is so richly merited, and I shall not do so on this occasion.  Will you kindly do as I have requested?”

It was final, and Avery knew it.  Mrs. Lorimer knew it also, and burst into hysterical crying.

Avery turned swiftly.  “Go upstairs, dear!” she said to Gracie, and Gracie went like an arrow.

Mrs. Lorimer started to her feet.  “Stephen!  Stephen!” she cried imploringly.

But her husband turned a deaf ear.  With a contemptuous gesture he tossed Avery’s letters upon the table and stalked from the room.

Mrs. Lorimer uttered a wild cry of despair, and fell back fainting in her chair.