"Go?" said Benjamin Wright, scowling and chewing orange-skin rapidly, "the sooner the better! I'm glad to get rid of you. But, confound you! why didn't you tell me so yesterday? Then I needn't have--Well, how much money do you want? Have you told your--your mother that you are going? Come on up to the house, and I'll give you a check. But why didn't you make up your mind to this yesterday?" Snarling and snapping, and then falling into silence, he began to trudge up the driveway to his old house. Sam said briefly that he didn't know how much money he wanted, and that he had not as yet told his family of his purpose. "I'll tell mother to-night," he said. Then he, too, was silent, his young step falling in with his grandfather's shuffling gait. When Mr. Wright left her, Helena stood staring after him, sobbing under her breath. She was terrified, but almost instantly she began to be angry.... That old man, creeping away along the road, had told her that he would not betray her; but his knowledge was a menace, and his surprise that she should have David, an insult! Of course, her way of living was considered "wrong" by people who cannot understand such situations--old-fashioned, narrow-minded people. But the idea of any harm coming to David by it was ridiculous! As for Sam Wright, all that sort of thing was impossible, because it was repugnant. No married woman, "respectable," as such women call themselves, could have found the boy's love-making more repugnant than she did. And certainly her conduct in Old Chester was absolutely irreproachable: she went to church fairly often; she gave liberally to all the good causes of the village; she was kind to her servants, and courteous to these stupid Old Chester people. And yet, simply because she had been forced by Frederick's cruelty into a temporary unconventionality, this dingy, grimy old man despised her! "He looked at me as if I were--I don't know what!" Anger swept the color up into her face, her hands clenched, and she ground her heel down into the path as if she were grinding the insolent smile from his cruel old face. Horrible old man! Dirty, tremulous; with mumbling jaws chewing constantly; with untidy white hairs pricking out from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled hands and blackened nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes upon her with an amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think that she was unworthy of his precious grandson's company--unworthy of David's little handclasp. She would leave this impudent Old Chester! She would tell Lloyd so, as soon as he came. She would not endure the insults of these narrow-minded fools.