"Poor little girl!" sighed Mrs. Waldstricker. "How I wish now I'd done more for her! I might have, you know."
The lawyer raised his hand deprecatingly.
"What's past, is done with," he answered gloomily. "I don't know how much she'll let me do, but I am going to help her in spite of herself. That shack by the lake is an awful place. I swear I'll give her decent surroundings and a chance to live.... I'm going down today."
"But, Forrie," his sister objected, "I want you to come home with me to dinner. You haven't been to our house in a long time, not since the night you came from Binghamton and went off to Skinner's in the storm."
"Helen, dear," Young explained, apologetically, "I can't come to your house as long as Ebenezer feels toward me the way he does. You see, don't you?"
"Oh, I suppose I do, but I just can't stand it. Eb has acted badly and tried to shoulder it all off on you. But can't you overlook it, honey?"
"Why, Helen, how can I? I don't feel any too pleasant toward him, and he doesn't want to be friends, either. He pays no attention to my wishes but tries to ride rough shod over me. He regards my interest in Tess as a personal affront. He persecutes her because he thinks he's annoying me. But there, don't cry any more. You'll only make yourself ill! I think you ought to go home and lie down. You've some one else besides yourself and Eb to think of, dear girl."
"I know it," she sobbed, "and I've tried to show Ebenezer how happy we'd be if he'd forget those people down the lake and let you do what you want to. Sometimes I think he's lost his mind. I really don't know what to do."
Helen rose from her chair.
"Nor do I," replied Young.