"His friends have burned the rascal out," he said. "Well, I don't know that we could have hoped for anything better; but I want to hear what you can tell me about it. You will have to spare me Captain Cheyne for a little, Hetty." Cheyne rose and went away with him, while, when the door closed behind them, Hetty--who had seen the vindictive satisfaction in her father's face--turned to her companion with a flash of imperious anger in her eyes. "Flo," she said, "how can he? It's wicked of him." Miss Schuyler checked her with a gesture. "Any way, he is your father." Hetty flushed, but the colour faded and left her face white again. "Well," she said, "Clavering isn't, and it is he who has made him so bitter against Larry. Flo, it's horrible. They would have been glad if the boys had killed him, and when he's ill and wounded they will not let me go to him." Her voice broke and trembled, and Flora Schuyler laid a hand restrainingly upon her arm. "Of course. But why should you, Hetty?" Hetty, who shook off her grasp, rose and stood quivering a little, but very straight, looking down on her with pride, and a curious hardness in her eyes. "You don't know?" she said. "Then I'll tell you. Because there is nobody like Larry, and never will be. Because I love him better than I ever fancied I could love anybody, and--though it's 'most wonderful--he has loved me and waited ever so patiently. Now they are all against him, I'm going to him. Flo, they have 'most made me hate them, the people I belong to, and I think if I was a man I could kill Clavering." Flora Schuyler sat very still a moment, but it was fortunate she retained her composure whatever she may have felt, for Hetty was in a mood for any rashness. Stretching out her hand, she drew the girl down beside her with a forceful gentleness. "Hetty," she said, "I think I know how such a man as Larry is would feel, and you want him to be proud of you. Well, there are things that neither he nor you could do, and you must listen to me quietly." She reasoned with the girl for a while until Hetty shook the passion from her. "Of course you are right, Flo," she said, and her voice was even. "If he could bear all that, I can be patient too. Larry has had ever so many hard things to do, but it is only because it would not be fair to him I'm not going to him now. Flo, you will not leave me until the trouble's through?" Miss Schuyler turned and kissed her, and then, rising quietly, went out of the room. She had shown Hetty her duty to Larry, which she felt would be more convincing just then than an exposition of what she owed her father, and had reasons for desiring solitude to grapple with affairs of her own. What she had done had cost her an effort, but Flora Schuyler was fond of Hetty and recognized the obligation of the bond she was contracting when she made a friend.