"She's cheated me," insisted Will hoarsely. "It's been all a scheme of hers from the very beginning. She's cheated me about the will, grandpa; I swear she has."
"Eh? What's that?" responded the old man, shaking back his heavy eyebrows. "Say your say right now, for in five minutes you go off this place with every hound in the pack yelping at your heels. I'll not have you here—I'll not have you here!"
The words ended in a snarl, and a fleck of foam dropped on his gray beard.
"But it was all Maria's doing," urged Will passionately. "She has been against me from the first; I see that now. She's plotted to oust me from the very start."
"Well, she might have spared herself the trouble," was Fletcher's sharp rejoinder.
"Let me explain—let me explain," pleaded the other, in a desperate effort to gain time; "just a word or two—I only want a word."
But when his grandfather drew back and stood glowering upon him in silence, the speech he had wished to utter withered upon his lips, blighted by a panic terror, and he stood mumbling incoherently beneath his breath.
"Give me a word—a word is all I want," he reiterated wildly.
"Then out with your damned word and begone!" roared Fletcher.
Will's eyes travelled helplessly around the room, seeking in vain some inspiration from the objects his gaze encountered. The tin safe, the basket of feathers, the pile of walnuts on the hearth, each arrested his wandering attention for an instant, and he beheld all the details with amazing vividness.