They all sat down helplessly where he told them, and watched his face anxiously.

He selected a pipe from the row over the mantelpiece, fitted a new mouthpiece to it, and carefully filled it.

“As you are all in possession of my room,” he said in an urbane voice, “I can hardly smoke with any comfort here, I am afraid.  I will come and talk to you again later on.  I am going to have a pipe first in the old loft in the cow paddock.  Keep out of mischief till I come back.”

He struck a match, lighted his tobacco, and, without a glance at the silent children, left the room, locking the door behind him.

Once more he crossed the paddocks, and once more pushed open the creaking door.  The orange peel lay just where he had seen it before, only it was a little drier and more dead-looking.  The hair ribbon was in exactly the same knot.  The ladder creaked in just the same place, and again threatened to break his neck when he reached the top.  The dominoes were there still, the ham-bone and the pillow occupied the same places; the only difference being the former had a black covering of ants now, and a wind had been playing with the pillow, and had carried the feathers in all directions.

He crossed the floor, not softly, but just with his usual measured military-step.  Nothing moved.  He reached the partition and looked over.

Judy lay across the improvised bed, sleeping a sleep of utter exhaustion after her rapid flight from the river.  She had a frock of Meg’s on, that made her look surprisingly long and thin; he was astonished to think she had grown so much.

“There will be no end to my trouble with her as she grows older,” he said, half aloud, feeling extremely sorry for himself for being her father.  Then a great anger and irritation rose within him as he watched her sleeping so quietly there.  Was she always to be a disturber of his peace?  Was she always to thwart him like this?

“Judy,” he said in a loud voice.

The closed eyelids sprang open, the mist of sleep and forgetfulness cleared from the dark eyes, and she sprang up, a look of absolute horror on her face.

“What are you doing here, may I ask?” he said, very coldly.

The scarlet colour flooded her cheeks, her very brow, and then dropped down again, leaving her white to the lips, but she made no answer.

“You have run away from school, I suppose?” he continued, in the same unemotional voice.  “Have you anything to say?”

Judy did not speak or move, she only watched his face with parted lips.

“Have you anything to say for yourself, Helen?” he repeated.

“No, Father,” she said.

Her face had a worn, strained look that might have touched him at another time, but he was too angry to notice.

“No excuse or reason at all?”

“No, Father.”

He moved toward the opening.  “A train goes in an hour and a half, you will come straight back with me this moment,” he said, in an even voice.  “I shall take precautions to have you watched at school since you cannot be trusted.  You will not return home for the Christmas holidays, and probably not for those of the following June.”