"If I thought that, I'd go out and hang myself. I can understand a man selling his soul for drink, though I rarely touch a drop, or for women, though I've never bothered about them, but never, not even in the last extremity, for money." A door creaked somewhere on the second floor and a minute afterwards the slow and hesitating feet of Mrs. Treadwell were heard ascending the stairs. "Let her come in just a moment, Oliver," begged Susan, and her tone was full of the impatient, slightly arrogant affection with which she regarded her mother. There was little sympathy and less understanding between them, but on Susan's side there was a feeling of protective tenderness which was almost maternal. This tenderness was all her own, while the touch of arrogance in her manner belonged to the universal inability of youth to make allowances for age. "Oh, well," said Oliver indifferently; and going to the door, he opened it and stood waiting for Mrs. Treadwell to enter. "I came up to ask if you wouldn't eat something, dear?" she asked. "But I suppose Susan has brought you your supper?" "He won't touch a morsel, mother; it is useless to ask him. He is going away just as soon as we have finished packing." "But where is he going? I didn't know that he had any place to go to." "Oh, a man can always find a place somewhere." "How can you take it so lightly, Susan," protested Mrs. Treadwell, beginning to cry. "That's the only sensible way to take it, isn't it, Oliver?" asked Susan, gaily. "Don't get into a fidget about me, Aunt Belinda," said Oliver, pushing the pile of newspapers out of her way, while she sat down nervously on the end of a packing-case and wiped her eyes on the fringe of her purple shawl. The impulsive kindness with which he had spoken to her a few hours before had vanished from his tone, and left in its place an accent of irritation. His sympathy, which was never assumed, resulted so entirely from his mood that it was practically independent of the person or situation which appeared to inspire it. There were moments when, because of a sensation of mental or physical well-being, he overflowed with a feeling of tenderness for the beggar at the crossing; and there were longer periods, following a sudden despondency, when the suffering of his closest friend aroused in him merely a sense of personal outrage. So complete, indeed, was his absorption in himself, that even his philosophy was founded less upon an intellectual conception of the universe than it was upon an intense preoccupation with his own personality. "But you don't mean that you are going for good?--that you'll never come back to see Susan and me again?" whimpered his aunt, while her sagging mouth trembled. "You can't expect me to come back after the things Uncle Cyrus has said to me."