It pierced him with an intolerable pain.  “Dinah—­Dinah!” he said.  “For God’s sake, child, you don’t mean—­that!”

Her white, pinched face twisted in a dreadful smile.  “Why not?” she said.  “There was no other way.”  And then a sudden quiver as of returning life went through her.  “Why did you stop me?” she said.  “If you hadn’t, it would have been—­all over by now.”

He put out a quick hand.  “Don’t say it,—­in heaven’s name!  You are not yourself.  Come—­come into the wood, and we will talk!”

She did not take his hand.  “Can’t we talk here?” she said.

He composed himself with an effort.  “No, certainly not.  Come into the wood!”

He spoke with quiet insistence.  She gave him an inscrutable look.

“You think you are going to help me,—­Mr. Greatheart,” she said, “but I am past help.  Nothing you can do will make any difference to me now.”

“Come with me nevertheless!” he said.

He laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder, and she winced with a sharpness that tore his heart.  But in a moment she turned beside him and began the ascent, slowly, labouringly, as if every step gave her pain.  He moved beside her, supporting her elbow when she faltered, steadily helping her on.

They entered the wood, and the desolate sighing of the wind encompassed them.  Dinah looked at her companion with the first sign of feeling she had shown.

“I must sit down,” she said.

“There is a fallen tree over there,” he said, and guided her towards it.

She leaned upon him, very near to collapse.  He spread his coat upon the tree and helped her down.

“Now how long is it since you had anything to eat?” he said.

She shook her head slightly.  “I don’t remember.  But it doesn’t matter.  I’m not hungry.”

He took one of her icy hands and began to rub it.  “Poor child!” he said.  “You ought to be given some hot bread and milk and tucked up in bed with hot bottles.”

Her face began to work.  “That,” she said, “is the last thing that will happen to me.”

“Haven’t you been to bed at all?” he questioned.

Her throat was moving spasmodically; she bowed her head to hide her face from him.  “Yes,” she said in a whisper.  “My mother—­my mother put me there.”  And then as if the words burst from her against her will, “She thrashed me first with a dog-whip; but dogs have got hair to protect them, and I—­had nothing.  She only stopped because—­I fainted.  She hasn’t finished with me now.  When I go back—­when I go back—­” She broke off.  “But I’m not going,” she said, and her voice was flat and hard again.  “Even you can’t make me do that.  There’ll be another express this afternoon.”

Scott knelt down beside her, and took her bowed head on to his shoulder.  “Listen to me, Dinah!” he said.  “I am going to help you, and you mustn’t try to prevent me.  If you had only allowed me, I would have gone home again with you yesterday, and this might have been avoided.  My dear, don’t draw yourself away from me!  Don’t you know I am a friend you can trust?”