"But I found it like that."
She shook her head.
"You must go away, my dear."
She was of the same mind, then, as her son had been. Go away! Go away! That was all the welcome they had here for Ethan Gano. A feeling of bitterness took hold on him, of such loneliness that it was as if, without warning, he had heard pronounced a sentence of perpetual exile. "For that's what it is," he thought: "she will never ask me to come again." And he was right—she never did.
He had got up after a moment or two, and gone out to the veranda, where he walked up and down, with the noise of the rain in his ears.
Presently Emmie looked out.
"Where's Val?" asked Ethan.
"Up-stairs. Ever since supper she's been seeing if the tubs and things are under all the leaks."
"Ask her to come out here when she's finished, will you?"
"Yes," said Emmie reluctantly, and turned away.