“Please, mother!” Howard twisted his fingers and pulled at his collar. “Don’t you start in on me—I’m a wreck, and my nerves are all shot to pieces now! Dad hasn’t stopped talking for a moment all the way home—I just _can’t_ stand much more!” He walked unsteadily to the mantle and stood, leaning his head upon it. Elinor dropped back to the large chair her mother had recently occupied, and curled up in it, her feet under her, her head buried in her arms. In a few quick steps, the mother crossed the room to her son’s side. Her arm went protectingly about his bowed, weary shoulders. “Oh, my dear, my dear!” and there was a world of sympathy and love in the vibrating voice, “I’m not going to upbraid you! I just want to tell you that——” A slight sound at the door made her turn to glance over her shoulder. Hugh Benton stood there, stern and relentless. His eyes roved from the stricken girl huddled in her chair to rest on the bowed head of his son and the mother who stood beside him, her attitude one of soothing. Like a cold accusing judge he stood towering there. Slowly his hand came up into a sweeping gesture to include the scene. Then the hand was pointed relentlessly, unforgivingly, at the suffering mother. When he spoke his voice was harsh, repelling. “Well, Marjorie!” he bit off his words, “I trust you’re satisfied!” CHAPTER XVI “Hugh!” It was a cry of pain torn from the mother heart. But even in her anguish for her children there came a pang for the man she loved as she gazed at him wide-eyed, distressed. He seemed to have aged ten years since his interview with her only a few hours before. His face was drawn and haggard. Large, dark circles were about the eyes. The wife forced herself to speak calmly. “What do you mean?” she queried. “I mean,” he answered, coming slowly into the room with lagging footsteps, “that this is all your work!” His gesture took in Elinor and Howard. “And I hope it pleases you,” he repeated bitterly. “Hugh, at a time like this, when we need all your strength and sympathy to sustain us—you speak to me like this?” Marjorie’s voice was full of reproach. “Why do you use such tones to me?” “Because,” he replied and there was no suspicion of a softening heart in his hard voice, “I hold you responsible for everything! If I had listened to the dictates of my own heart, we would never have come to New York—but I was weak enough to yield to your persuasions.” “Surely, Hugh,—” Marjorie’s lips quivered pitifully as she started to protest, but he authoritatively motioned her to silence. “I tried to argue with you at the time and impress upon you just what an environment such as this would mean to our children, but you wouldn’t listen to me!” he raged. “You told me that you, their mother, should know what was best for them. Well, there they are! Look at your daughter, the pitiful creature of a dissolute man’s fancy, and your son, a——”