She was one who
wept without showing many traces, like a child.
'Do I look a sight?' she said, shrinking.
'No--why? Come in,' he took the bag from her hand and they went into
the study.
There--immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child
that remembers again, and the tears came rushing up.
'What's the matter?' he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed
violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting.
'What's the matter?' he said again, when she was quieter. But she only
pressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that
cannot tell.
'What is it, then?' he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes,
regained her composure, and went and sat in a chair.
'Father hit me,' she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a
ruffled bird, her eyes very bright.
'What for?' he said.
She looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness
about her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips.
'Why?' he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice.
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