"I've seen Ellen," said he.
Grandfather looked at him without understanding.
"You've seen Ellen? Why not?"
"She went to Harrisburg as she said she would. There she's living with Mrs. Sassaman and she declares she won't come back."
Grandfather clasped and unclasped his hands.
"We must pray."
Matthew caught Amos's burning gaze and believed it to be one of anger at this mention of Ellen.
"She's living in a miserable neighborhood in a house hanging over the railroad. She had a place in a store, but she's been dismissed. Now she's going to hunt for another place. She looks sick." He delivered his short sentences as though they were so many missiles hurled at Grandfather. It seemed to Grandfather that they were missiles hurled at Ellen. The right to judge Ellen belonged, he believed, to him.
"Matthew," he said, white and trembling, "you mustn't be too hard on the little one."
Now Matthew trembled. Nerves were on edge, peace had gone from his house and heart with Ellen. It was not only that he missed her, but that there had appeared, as though revealed by her departure, characteristics in Millie to which he had hitherto been blind. It was not that Millie had degenerated; it was merely that he saw her suddenly as she was. Her habits of life were those of the König family. His table was no longer neatly set; bread was softened by being dipped into coffee; his house was untidy; the necessities of little Matthew were attended to unblushingly before every one. He had discovered with amazement that a man's mind is not at rest even when he is converted and is a husband and father. He had in the last week had moments of sick regret when he stood for many minutes with his hands on the handles of his plough, preoccupied with wicked desires for freedom. He had, as Ellen surmised, changed radically. A late-born activity of mind tortured him—it was as though his Milhausen inheritance had had its way with him, had led him into a trap and there had abandoned him.