"No, Harold, I must do my duty. You must be punished for your conduct. I shall burn these things."
Harold could not guess all that her mistaken sternness cost his mother. With a cry like that of a wounded animal he rushed away, and Helen stepped forward.
"Please don't burn those things," she said, "Agatha really did provoke him. I should have been quite as angry, perhaps angrier, if anyone had treated me as she did Harold."
"I am quite ready to believe that, Helen," returned Mrs. Bayden with a curious smile. "When you remember the terrible consequences of your own conduct, you will not wonder that I am anxious to save Harold from the scourge of an ungoverned temper."
Helen shrank back as though she had received a blow. Mrs. Bayden was quite right, she thought. Her interference could never do any good. But she was still smarting under the sense of injustice, although she was not the sufferer upon this occasion.
"Why didn't you tell your mother that Harold wasn't to blame?" she asked Grace indignantly when Mrs. Bayden and Agatha had gone, and those two were left alone.
Grace shrugged her shoulders.
"It wouldn't have been any good," she said; "mother always takes Agatha's part. Besides, she and Harold are always quarrelling. It's just as often his fault as hers. I wish he was at school like the other boys. But come along out into the garden. We can take books with us and read."
Nothing loth, Helen agreed. They found a shady spot, and Grace, who liked nothing so much as reading, was soon deep in her book. But Helen was restless and ill at ease. Her attention wandered, and she could think of nothing but Harold.
"I think I will go for a stroll," she said presently. "You needn't come. I like wandering about by myself."