"It's no use your saying any more!" May exclaimed at last. "I understand just what you mean, Van Harrington. It's the same way it was with the judge's peaches. You wanted 'em, and you took 'em! What you want you think is good for every one, especially for Van Harrington. And you are so wise and strong you think you can breakthrough all laws because laws are made for small people, like Will and me, and you and your kind are Napoleons. You talk as if you were a part of God's destiny. And I say"--here her voice broke for a moment--"I say, Van, you are the devil's instrument! You and those like you--and there a good many of them--are just plain big rascals, only the laws can't get hold of you." Her lips trembled and at the end broke into that little ironical smile which I knew so well, the smile she had when I used to get into some boyish scrape, and she was looking through me for the truth. But for all her hot words, I knew she had kindly feeling for me somewhere in her heart. Nevertheless, Sarah, who had been following our talk as well as she could, fired up at her accusations. "I think, May," she remonstrated with all her dignity, "that you cannot say any more such things in my husband's house." "Yes," I added, "we have had too much talk all around. You can't change my character any more than you can make wheat grow in Arizona or sugar-cane in Dakota. And I don't want to change your views, either, May." For though she made me pretty angry, I admired the way she stood to her guns. She was a fighter! And Will must act as she decided. Whoever travelled with her would have to travel by her star. "Yes," my brother replied, "it's gone too far now to change. Words don't do any good. Come, wife, let us go." "I am sorry for Sarah!" May said, taking Sarah's hands in hers. "She suffers for you, Van, and she will suffer for this all her life. But I am sorrier for you, Van, for you have gone too far to suffer!" Thereupon she swept out of the room, her little figure swelling with dignity; and Will followed her, as the needle swings to its magnet, pausing only long enough to reach for my hand and press it. When the front door shut upon them the house seemed suddenly cold and empty. Sarah had slipped back to the lounge, and was staring up at the ceiling, a tear trickling across her face. "I suppose May won't ever come back again. And we were planning to take that cottage this summer so that the children could be together." That detail didn't seem to me very important, but it was the one that showed to Sarah the gulf which had opened between us. Sarah's little world, by that token, had suffered an earthquake. "Oh," I said, trying to comfort her, "like as not this will blow over! May has disapproved of me before this."