"She has brought you low," she commented one evening to Ernie in that pseudo-mystical voice, as of one talking in her sleep, from the covert of which some women hope to shoot their poisoned arrows with impunity. This time, however, she was not to escape just punishment.
Ernie flared.
"Who says she has then?"
Anne Caspar had struck a spark of reality out of the moss-covered flint; and now—as had happened at rare intervals throughout his life—Ernie made his mother suddenly afraid.
"Everyone," she said, lamely, trying vainly to cover her retreat.
"Ah," said Ernie, nodding. "I knaw who, and I'll let him knaw it too."
"Best be cautious," replied his mother with a smirk. "He's your landlord now. And you're behind."
Ernie rose.
"He may be my landlord," he cried. "But I'm the daddy o he yet."
Sullenly he returned to the house that was now for him no home: for the woman who had made it home was punishing not without just cause the man who had betrayed it.