"Mr.
Lorimer!" she called.

"Mr.Lorimer, let me in!" There was no response.

Possibly she was not even heard, for the dreadful crying continued and, mingled with it, the swish of the slender little riding-switch which in the earlier, less harassed days of his married life the Reverend Stephen had kept for the horse he rode, and which now he kept for his children.
They were terrible moments for Avery that she spent outside that locked door, listening impotently to a child's piteous cries for mercy from one who knew it not.

But they came to an end at last.

Gracie's distress sank into anguished sobs, and Avery knew that the punishment was over.