Black as this ingratitude looked to him now, he experienced a strange and intense desire to see his olden friend once more. What was he doing at Hope Mills? Had he found a place?
The next morning's mail brought him a check for sixty dollars, for an article he had thought little of himself, and sent merely because he had happened to finish it, and was despatching his ventures out on the sea of chance. Then he went over to Mrs. Minor's: he had not seen his mother for several days.
He was quite in the habit of going directly up to her room; but, as he neared it, he heard voices raised in no gentle discussion. Agatha stood in the middle of the room, flushed, angry, an open note in her hand; Mrs. Lawrence was weeping hysterically, while Irene sat pale and sullen, but her eyes gleaming with a dangerous fire.
"Very well: if you deliberately decide to take a beggar's portion, then, do not look to me for any further help," said Mrs. Minor. "This marriage would have afforded you every luxury; and you have thrown aside the chance, like a silly school-girl. Perhaps you have some secret, favored lover!" and the glittering eyes might have annihilated a weaker woman than Irene Lawrence.
"If I had, I should go to him. I would live on crusts and a cup of cold water with him, rather than luxury," with a bitter, stinging emphasis, "and my own humiliation. The man would drive me mad, Agatha! Some day, yielding to an irresistible impulse, I should murder him;" and she gave a shrill, unnatural laugh.
Fred went over to her, and took her hand. His business in life was to be her champion, her defender, her support,—not only against this monstrous marriage, at which her soul revolted, but Agatha's sneers and flings, and the dependence a proud soul must naturally feel when the very bread turns to ashes in one's mouth. How it was to be done, he could not tell at that moment; but he drew one long breath of honest, hopeful manliness, and resolved to leave no stone unturned.
His mother wept in his comforting arms. She was very much shattered,—quite an old woman long before her time, made so by the follies of an indolent, enervating life. Like a pang the thought pierced his brain, that for these paltry results his father had given the strength and labor of manhood.