"Now listen to me and be sensible children. You cannot go home tonight. The fog is still bad and there is nobody here who can take you. You certainly cannot go by yourselves, as it is too far, too dark, and too dangerous. In the morning, early before breakfast, Jacob shall go to your mother on his motor-cycle and tell her you are safe and sound and will be coming home soon. You are to go to bed now, and you are not to call out to anybody. Not to anybody. Do you understand?"

The twins looked at her and gulped. She looked so angry that for a moment they were afraid. Her red lips were set in a hard line in her white face and her eyes looked big and dark. She held them each by a shoulder, and her fingers gripped so hard that they both winced. Try as she would, Mary could not keep the tears from her eyes, but somehow she stopped them from falling. And Dickie was the same. They felt very small and lonely after all their adventures, and there did not seem to be anything they could do. Suddenly Dickie remembered his mother and how she would be worrying. He still felt guilty about leaving Witchend and going with John in the morning, and as Mrs, Thurston's fingers were still hurting his shoulder he unexpectedly twisted out of her grasp and made a dash for the door and shouted, "John! John!"

Then Mrs. Thurston lost her temper. She pulled him back roughly and slapped him hard across the mouth. Dickie's face went white, but he stood still and quiet, watching her - a tired but brave little boy facing a grown-up he could not understand. But not so Mary. Someone had once said of the Morton children - and of the twins in particular - that they often squabbled over details, but if anyone had the temerity to criticize one of them "the ranks closed"!

Now it was Mary's turn again to defend her beloved twin.

She was so angry that the tears streamed from her eyes without her realizing that she was crying. She could see the red marks of Mrs. Thurston's fingers across the white of Dickie's cheek, and she could see, too, how his lip was trembling. She forgot her mother and Witchend, and the Lone-Piners, and everything except Dickie and Mrs. Thurston.

"You utter beast!" she said. "You hit him! Yes, you did. You great beastly bully! I'll tell everybody 'bout you. Everybody I see I'll tell you hit Dickie. He didn't do anything... we only want to go home... No! I won't be quiet. I'll shout and scream till somebody..."