Without a word she put the lamp down on the table at the foot of the stairs, and looked at him standing there with the darkness of the night behind him. Instantly he was across the threshold and at her side. He gripped her wrist and shook it, his eyes burning into hers. "You will tell me that he lied! I told him he lied. I didn't believe him for a second. I told him I would ask you." "Please let go of my arm," she said, faintly. "I don't know what you are--talking about." "Did he lie?" "Who?" she stammered. "My grandfather. He said your brother was not your brother. He said he was your lover. My God! Your lover! Did he lie?" He shook her arm, worrying it as a dog might, his nails cutting into her flesh; he snarled his question out between shut teeth. His fury swept words from her lips. She stepped back with a spring of terror, trying to pull her wrist from his grasp; but he followed her, his dreadful young face close to hers. She put her other hand behind her, and clutched at the banister-rail of the stairs. She stared at him in a trance of fright. There was a long minute of silence. Then Sam said slowly, as though he were reading it word by word, aloud, from the open page of her face, "He--did--not--lie." He dropped her wrist; flung it from him, even, and stood motionless. Again neither of them spoke. Then Sam drew a long breath. "So, _this_ is life," he said, in a curiously meditative way. "Well; I have had enough of it." He turned as he spoke, and went quietly out into the night. Helena Richie sat down on the lowest step of the stairs. She breathed in gasps. Suddenly she looked at her arm on which were four deep red marks; in two places the skin was broken. Upon the fierce pangs of her mind, flayed and stabbed by the boy's words, this physical pain of which she had just become conscious, was like some soothing lotion. She stroked her wrist tenderly, jealous of the lessening smart. She knew vaguely that she was really wincing lest the smart should cease and the other agony begin. She looked with blind eyes at the lamp, then got up and turned the wick down; it had been smoking slightly and a half-moon of black had settled on the chimney. "Sarah doesn't half look after the lamps," she said aloud, fretfully--and drew in her lips; the nail-marks stung. But the red was dying out of them. Yes; the other pain was coming back. She paled with fright of that pain which was coming; coming; had come. She covered her face with her hands.... "Who," demanded a sleepy voice, "was scolding?" Helena looked around quickly; David, in his little cotton night-drawers, was standing at the head of the stairs. "Who scolded? I heard 'em," he said, beginning to come down, one little bare foot at a time; his eyes blinked drowsily at the lamp. Helena caught him in her arms, and sank down again on the step. But he struggled up out of her lap, and stood before her. "It's too hot," he said, "I heard 'em. And I came down. Was anybody scolding you?"