“I know I seem queer and like a little old man,” he said.  “Mother cries about it sometimes.  But it can’t be helped.  It is because she has never had anyone but me to help her.  When I was very little, I found out how frightened and miserable she was.  After his rages,” he used no name, “she used to run into my nursery and snatch me up in her arms and hide her face in my pinafore.  Sometimes she stuffed it into her mouth and bit it to keep herself from screaming.  Once—­before I was seven—­I ran into their room and shouted out, and tried to fight for her.  He was going out, and had his riding whip in his hand, and he caught hold of me and struck me with it—­until he was tired.”

Betty stood upright.

“What!  What!  What!” she cried out.

He merely nodded his head shortly.  She saw what the thing had been by the way his face lost colour.

“Of course he said it was because I was impudent, and needed punishment,” he said.  “He said she had encouraged me in American impudence.  It was worse for her than for me.  She kneeled down and screamed out as if she was crazy, that she would give him what he wanted if he would stop.”

“Wait,” said Betty, drawing in her breath sharply. “‘He,’ is Sir Nigel?  And he wanted something.”

He nodded again

“Tell me,” she demanded, “has he ever struck her?”

“Once,” he answered slowly, “before I was born—­he struck her and she fell against something.  That is why I am like this.”  And he touched his shoulder.

The feeling which surged through Betty Vanderpoel’s being forced her to go and stand with her face turned towards the windows, her hands holding each other tightly behind her back.

“I must keep still,” she said.  “I must make myself keep still.”

She spoke unconsciously half aloud, and Ughtred heard her and replied hurriedly.

“Yes,” he said, “you must make yourself keep still.  That is what we have to do whatever happens.  That is one of the things mother wanted you to know.  She is afraid.  She daren’t let you——­”

She turned from the window, standing at her full height and looking very tall for a girl.

“She is afraid?  She daren’t?  See—­that will come to an end now.  There are things which can be done.”

He flushed nervously.

“That is what she was afraid you would say,” he spoke fast and his hands trembled.  “She is nearly wild about it, because she knows he will try to do something that will make you feel as if she does not want you.”

“She is afraid of that?” Betty exclaimed.

“He’d do it!  He’d do it—­if you did not know beforehand.”

“Oh!” said Betty, with unflinching clearness.  “He is a liar, is he?”

The helpless rage in the unchildish eyes, the shaking voice, as he cried out in answer, were a shock.  It was as if he wildly rejoiced that she had spoken the word.

“Yes, he’s a liar—­a liar!” he shrilled.  “He’s a liar and a bully and a coward.  He’d—­he’d be a murderer if he dared—­but he daren’t.”  And his face dropped on his arms folded on his crutch, and he broke into a passion of crying.  Then Betty knew she might go to him.  She went and knelt down and put her arm round him.