The youth went down upon the frozen ground like a felled ox. He was dazed by the collision of the back of his head with the hard earth. Helmford stepped over him and led Pearl away with a firm hand under her elbow. She was sobbing. The young man felt that there was nothing he could say. After the vulgar accusation Tom Petty had made, he did not know how to address the girl. So they reached the house without a word being spoken between them. Tom had picked himself up and was following at a distance. Pearl ran up to her room without appearing at all before the family. Helmford waited in the kitchen with Sarah and Orrin until Tom came in. He had something to say, and he said it at last, and there was snap to it. "This son of yours," he concluded, particularly addressing Sarah Petty, "is impossible. You abetted him on a previous occasion when you rudely entered my room and spoke as you did to a guest of mine. Now this fellow accuses me of a most vulgar interest in Miss Pearl. These outbreaks, I can plainly see, will occur with more frequency if I remain. You are paid to the end of the week, Mrs. Petty. I will go to-morrow morning." He waited for no argument, but went up to his room. He spent half the night packing. Before breakfast he was gone, and that afternoon Perry Baker on his usual trip stopped for Mr. Helmford's trunks and boxes. "He's got board with the Widder Weth'rel and her darters t'other side of Cardhaven," said the gossipy Perry. "Guess you be glad to see the last of him, Sarah, as you say. Them city folks is awful fussy. You've got to cater to 'em a lot, an' a body must be a purty good cook an' housekeeper to suit." Sarah Petty was almost apoplectic, but she said not a word in reply. CHAPTER XXI THE WISE MEN OUT OF THE SOUTH The two members of the Petty household who, after all, were to be the more affected by the abrupt departure of Joe Helmford, knew nothing about it until the expressman came for the young man's baggage and his books. His absence at breakfast and dinner chanced to draw no comment or question from Cap'n Jonah; and Pearl, after the incident on the road coming from chapel, dreaded meeting the man from the fish hatchery. Tom's brutality and his insulting words had utterly overpowered her. Again, because of her excitement, she had scarcely noted the reference to Cap'n Jonah's threatened disposal of his fortune. Of all the inhabitants of this longshore community Pearl Holden probably was the least interested in money, either in large or small sums. But she owned now to a deep and abiding interest in Joe Helmford. For the moment she was in his arms as he steadied her against the wind squall, she found herself giving in utterly to the thrill of his embrace. Had Tom not burst so unexpectedly upon them what might not have happened?