"I shall stay."
"You can't; you mustn't. You don't want to mix up in this business—you don't understand."
He laid one hand on her arm, and with the other he reached out towards the door-knob.
She withdrew her arm from the hold of his fingers.
"I understand," she said, immovably.
He drew back. "You do? Well, stay then, if you will, and understand better. Learn what kind of a man he really is."
He thrust out his arm towards Ogden, with a cruel and contemptuous smile.
"He came here with letters," he began. "We gave him a chance. Nobody really knew what he was—"
Ogden stood there straight before him. He ground his teeth together to keep his face composed; behind him his nails dug into the palms of his hands, as he held himself back from springing forward and fastening them around the throat of Abbie Brainard's father. There was a ringing in his ears, and through it there sounded faintly the fine tones of Fairchild, speaking to Mary Brainard:
"Nobody really knows who he is, or who his people are, or where he is from ... a town full to overflowing with single young men ... from everywhere. They are taken on faith. Most of them are all right, no doubt; but others—"