Kite snapped at him: “Can’t be? It is. Here’s the very check he gave her, to go away.” He shook the slip of paper in the air. “What do you say to that?” “I don’t believe it,” Routt insisted. “I’ve known Wint too long.” He got up and strode across and gripped Wint’s shoulder. “Tell him it’s a damned lie, Wint,” he begged. Wint looked up at Routt with slow, steady eyes; and Routt, after a moment, could not meet them. He turned back to Kite, protesting Wint’s innocence. Their wrangling voices jangled in the silence. B. B. pretended not to hear, stared straight ahead of him. Ed Skinner twisted uneasily where he sat. Amos, deep in his chair, was watching Wint; and Wint’s father was watching Wint, too. Watching his son with a desperate, beseeching look in his eyes. Wint did not see; he was looking at the floor; and he was thinking of Hetty, thinking what this would mean to her. That which had come to her was already guessed at, in Hardiston; now every one would know beyond need of guessing. She would be outcast; no saving her; but one black road ahead. For the thing would be believed. He knew that. People had been ready to believe before this; ready to accept the mere rumor. His own father, his own mother.... This had been their first thought when he wished to help Hetty. Joan.... She had sought to question him. Yes, they would believe. Every one. He was not angry at them for their credulity; he pitied them. That they should be so malignant, and so blind. He was quite calm, not at all sorry for himself. Sorry for them. And most of all, he was sorry for Hetty. He had always liked Hetty; a good girl, give her a chance. The stuff of good womanhood in her. Blasted now.... He wished he might find a way to help her. Some way.... A word from Kite to Routt cut through his thoughts. “If you won’t believe me,” Kite exclaimed, “will you believe her?” “Hetty never said this,” Routt protested; and Kite got up and went swiftly out into the hall, saying over his shoulder: “Just a minute, then.” Every one looked toward the door, listening. They heard Kite open the front door and call: “Lutcher.” A man answered, outside. Kite asked: “Is she there?” The man said: “Yes.” “Send her in,” Kite directed. And they heard the sound of moving feet. So she had been waiting there, all this time, with Lutcher. Wint thought she must have been miserably unhappy as she waited. When he heard her step in the hall, he looked up and saw her. Her eyes met his for an instant; and Wint was curiously stirred by the pitiful appeal in them. As though she begged him to forgive.... Then her eyes left his. She came in and stood, just inside the door. Kite said: “Sit down.” He gave her his own chair, by the table. The girl moved apathetically across the room and took the chair. Kite looked down at her. “Now, Hetty,” he said, in the tone of one who questions a child. “I have been telling them what you told me. They think I am lying. Am I lying?”