The youth had evidently witnessed these paroxysms of rage before, for he bent his eyes to the ground as if the sight awoke some old pain, and turning quietly, seemed about to leave the room.
"You have done this without consulting me—countermanded my orders, defeated my object—how like you are to your father, now."
The last words were uttered with a burst of spite, as if they contained the very essence of bitterness, the last drop in the vials of her wrath.
The youth turned and lifted his eyes, full of sorrowful sternness, to her face. "Then you did—you did!" He paused, and his lips began to tremble under the muttered reproaches that sprang up from his heart.
"Yes," cried the woman, weak in everything but her malice, "yes, then, I did order it done—these people have tormented me enough with their miserable old house, always before my eyes, and that grim ugly face staring at me as I go to church. I tell you they shall leave the neighborhood, or I will. Give me the papers."
The youth lifted his eyes and regarded her sternly.
"They are cancelled, madam, and torn to ribbons, that our name might not be disgraced."
"Torn to pieces?"
"Into a thousand pieces, madam. I would have ground them to dust, if possible."
"You shall answer for this," cried the baffled woman, and with that sort of weak ferocity which is so repulsive, she sat down and began to cry.