Tom thought this very likely, and he made the store his destination. It seemed as though the storm was abating; but Tom Petty was so deeply engaged in thought that he paid slight attention to the weather. The lout had come to a juncture where he could no longer shift the burden of decision to other shoulders, or postpone settlement of this question until a future time. The shock of Pearl deliberately leaving the house with Cap'n Jonah had roused him to at least one fact. He cared a great deal for the girl. His was an utterly selfish love; but such as it was, it was the very best imitation of affection that Tom Petty would probably ever experience. To his mind Joe Helmford was but a passing fancy of Pearl's. Of course, in the end, he, Tom, would get her. It was foreordained. They had lived in such close companionship for so many years that he could imagine no change. That was why her actual departure had so shocked him. Now he was going after her. He never considered that she might not return home with him. Why, any other outcome of his attempt he did not contemplate for a moment! He had bullied Pearl for so long that he expected to keep on doing so indefinitely. Pearl was "easy." That was the way Tom Petty expressed it to himself. He did not enter Cap'n Abe's store, but went around the house to the kitchen door, expecting to find Betty Gallup there and learn from her how the land lay. It was not Mrs. Gallup, however, who came to the door in answer to his knuckles on the panel. "Tom Petty!" "Hi, Pearly!" the youth greeted her, calling up a grin. "Marm wants you should come home." "I'm never going back to your house again, Tom Petty, only to get my things." "Now, don't say that, Pearly," the young fellow went on, very mildly for him. "You don't want to be mean. Marm never said for you to go----" "I came away with Cap'n Jonah on my own hook," she agreed. "And I'm not going back." "Aw, yes you will," Tom repeated. "You know how much I like you, Pearly. I couldn't get along without you--no two ways about it! You got to stop this foolishness and come home. That old feller ain't got nothin'. He can't look out for himself, let alone do anything for you. And Helmford wouldn't look at you, you know well enough, if he didn't think you was goin' to be rich. Come on home, now." "I won't!" He thought she was about to close the door. Tom Petty had never learned patience, and his appearance of gentleness was only a veneer. His right hand shot out and he caught the girl's slim wrist. He jerked her out upon the step. "You come home along o' me and stop your foolishness," he growled. "Do you hear me, Pearly?" She struggled to escape. With her free hand she struck him across his inflamed and ugly face. She cried out as he forced her down the steps into the beating storm. "Stop! Stop, Tom Petty! I won't go home with you!" she cried. Around the corner of the kitchen ell charged Joe Helmford--the very person Pearl most desired to see.