The old man stroked the young one's hair as he would a child's. "Never mind," he said. "It don't matter what you felt. That 's between you an' Him. I only know what you said, an' that 's all I care about. Did n't you speak about the Lord a-whippin' the money-changers from the temple? Ain't lots o' them worse than the money-changers? Was n't Christ divine? Ain't you human? Would a body expect you to feel less'n He did? Huh! jest don't you worry; remember that you did n't hit a head that was n't in striking distance." And the old man pressed the boy back into his chair and slipped out. CHAPTER XII Beside an absolute refusal again to supply, Brent made no sign of the rebellion which was in him, and his second year slipped quickly and uneventfully away. He went to and from his duties silent and self-contained. He did not confide in Mr. Hodges, because his guardian seemed to grow more and more jealous of their friendship. He could not confide in Elizabeth, on account of a growing conviction that she did not fully sympathise with him. But his real feelings may be gathered from a letter which he wrote to his friend Taylor some two months after the events recorded in the last chapter. "MY DEAR TAYLOR," it ran, "time and again I have told myself that I would write you a line, keeping you in touch, as I promised, with my progress. Many times have I thought of our last talk together, and still I think as I thought then--that, in spite of all your disadvantages and your defeats, you have the best of it. When you fail, it is your own failure, and you bear down with you only your own hopes and struggles and ideals. If I fail, there falls with me all the framework of pride and anxiety that has so long pushed me forward and held me up. For my own failure I should not sorrow: my concern would be for the one who has so carefully shaped me after a pattern of her own. However else one may feel, one must be fair to the ambitions of others, even though one is the mere material that is heated and beaten into form on the anvil of another's will. But I am ripe for revolt. The devil is in me,--a restrained, quiet, well-appearing devil, but all the more terrible for that.