When her footsteps had died away, he walked to the bed and looked down contemptuously at the mumbling creature. He surveyed him critically, as a doctor might look at a feverish patient. "You're overdoing it," he said. "You're getting foolish." "That's right, Trimmer--that's right. You abuse me, too!" whined the old man, bursting into tears. "Isn't it bad enough to have one's child a thief, without servants bullying one?" "You are the last person to talk to Mrs. Swinton about stealing." "Keep your tongue still!" "If your daughter knew what I know!" "You don't know anything, sir--you don't know anything!" "I know a good deal. Three times during your illness, you were light-headed--you remember?" "I tell you, I'm not a thief. The money was mine--mine! Her mother was my wife--it belonged to me. Doesn't a wife's money belong to her husband?" "Tut, tut! Lie down and be quiet. I only kept quiet on condition that you set things straight for your daughter in your will, and left her the three thousand a year her mother placed in your care." "Trimmer, you're presuming. Trimmer, you're a bully. I'll--I'll cut your fifty thousand dollars out of my will--" "And I'll promptly cut you out of existence, if you do," murmured Trimmer, bending down. "That's right, threaten me--threaten me," whined the old man. "You're all against me--a lot of thieves and scoundrels! What would become of the world, if there weren't a few people like me to look after the money and save it from being squandered in soup-kitchens, and psalm-smiting, and Sunday schools?" "Lie down and be quiet. You've done enough talking for to-day. I'm going to have you moved into the other room." "I'll not be treated as a child, sir. I'll stop your wages, sir. I'll--" "I've had no wages for many months. Lie down." CHAPTER XVII MRS. SWINTON GOES HOME Mrs. Swinton returned to the rector, who was waiting in the library, with set face and clenched hands, pacing up and down like a caged beast. The increased whiteness of his hair and the extreme pallor of his skin gave to his sorrow-shadowed eyes an extraordinary brilliancy. His lips moved incessantly as thoughts, surging in his brain, demanded physical utterance. At intervals, he would wring his hands and look upward appealingly, like a man struggling in the toils of a temptation too great to be mastered. A long period of worry and embarrassment had broken his spirit. He was fated with the first real calamity that had ever overtaken him. With money difficulties, he was familiar. They scarcely touched his conscience. But, in this matter of his son's honor, the divergent roads of right and wrong were clearly defined; unhappily, he was not strong enough fearlessly to tread the path of virtue.