"Yes, I will," he said again. "Your mother--?"

"She hasn't wakened," Ella answered. "I don't think she has heard
anything. I don't suppose she will, for she took two of those pills
last night that Dr. Rawson gave her for when she couldn't sleep."

"It's just as well she did," said Deede Dawson.

"Yes, but please undo my hands," she asked him. "The cords are
cutting my wrists dreadfully."

As she spoke she glanced at Dunn, standing by the fireplace and
listening gravely to what they said, and Deede Dawson exclaimed
with an air of great indignation:--

"The fellow deserves to be well thrashed for treating you like that.
I've a good mind to do it, too, before handing him over to the
police."

"But you haven't released me yet," she remarked.

"Oh, yes, yes," he said, starting as if this were quite a new idea.
"I'll release you at once--but I must watch this scoundrel. He
must have frightened you dreadfully."

"Indeed he did not," she answered quickly, again looking at Dunn.
"No, he didn't," she said again with a touch of defiance in her
manner and a certain slightly lifting her small, round chin. "At
least not much after just at first," she added.