“Wrists hurt you much?” he asked.

“Not so much now,” she answered.  “They were beginning to hurt a great deal, though.”

“Were they, though?” said Deede Dawson.  “And to think you might have been like that for hours if I hadn’t chanced to come home.  Too bad, what a brute this fellow is.”

“Men mostly are, I think,” she observed indifferently.

“And women mostly like to get their own back again,” he remarked with a chuckle, and then turned sharply to Dunn.  “Well, my man,” he asked, “what have you got to say for yourself?”

“Nothing,” Dunn answered.  “It was a fair cop.”

“You’ve had a taste of penal servitude before, I suppose?” Deede Dawson asked.

“Maybe,” Dunn answered, as if not wishing to betray himself.  “Maybe not.”

“Well, I think I remember you said something about not being long out of Dartmoor,” remarked Deede Dawson.  “How do you relish the prospect of going back there?”

“I wonder,” interposed Ella thoughtfully.  “I wonder what it is in you that makes you so love to be cruel, father?”

“Eh what?” he exclaimed, quite surprised.  “Who’s being cruel?”

“You,” she answered.  “You enjoy keeping him wondering what you are going to do with him, just as you enjoyed seeing me tied to that chair and would have liked to leave me there.”

“My dear Ella!” he protested.  “My dear child!”

“Oh, I know,” she said wearily.  “Why don’t you hand the man over to the police if you’re going to, or let him go at once if you mean to do that?”

“Let him go, indeed!” exclaimed Deede Dawson.  “What an idea!  What should I do that for?”

“If you’ll give me another chance,” said Dunn quickly, “I’ll do anything—­I should get it pretty stiff for this lot, and that wouldn’t be any use to you, sir, would it?  I can do almost anything —­garden, drive a motor, do what I’m told, It’s only because I’ve never had a chance I’ve had to take to this line.”

“If you could do what you’re told you certainly might be useful,” said Deede Dawson slowly.  “And I don’t know that it would do me any good to send you off to prison—­you deserve it, of course.  Still—­you talk sometimes like an educated man?”

“I had a bit of education,” Dunn answered.

“I see,” said Deede Dawson.  “Well, I won’t ask you any more questions, you’d probably only lie.  What’s your name?”

With that sudden recklessness which was a part of his impulsive and passionate nature, Dunn answered: 

“Charley Wright.”

The effect was instantaneous and apparent on both his auditors.

Ella gave a little cry and started so violently that she dropped the bottle of eau-de-Cologne she had in her hands.

Deede Dawson jumped to his feet with a fearful oath.  His face went livid, his fat cheeks seemed suddenly to sag, of his perpetual smile every trace vanished.