A mouse came out into the room, gliding like a shadow along the wall to the pile of walnuts, and his eyes followed it as if drawn by an invisible thread.
"It's Maria—it's all Maria," he stuttered, and could think of nothing further. His brain seemed suddenly paralysed, and he found himself tugging hopelessly at the most commonplace word which would not come. All his swaggering bravado had scampered off at the first wag of the old man's head.
"If that's what you've got to say, you might as well be gone," returned Fletcher, moving toward him. "I warn you now that the next time I find you here you won't git off so easy. Maria or no Maria, you ain't goin' to lounge about this place so long as my name is Bill Fletcher. The farther you keep yourself and your yaller-headed huzzy out of my sight the better. Thar, now, be off or you'll git a licking."
"But I tell you Maria's cheated me—she's cheated me," returned
Will, his voice rising shrilly as he was goaded into revolt.
"She's been scheming to get the place all along; that's her
trick."
"Pish! Tush!" responded Fletcher. "Are you going or are you not?"
Will's eyes burned like coals, and an observer, noting the two men as they stood glaring at each other, would have been struck by their resemblance in attitude and expression rather than in feature. Both leaned slightly forward, with their chins thrust out and their jaws dropped, and there was a ceaseless twitching of the small muscles in both faces. The beast in each had sprung violently to the surface and recognised the likeness at which he snarled.
"You've left me to starve!" cried Will, strangling a sob of anger. "It's not fair! You have no right. The money ought to be mine—I swear it ought!"
"Oh, it ought, ought it?" sneered the old man, with an ugly laugh.
At the sound of the laugh, Will shrank back and shivered as if from the stroke of a whip. The spirit of rage worked in his blood like the spirit of drink, and he felt his disordered nerves respond in a sudden frenzy.
"It ought to be mine, you devil, and you know it!" he cried.