The Squire had known the late Judge Sanderson, the "big man" of the county, very well, and lost no time in cultivating the acquaintance of the judge's nephew, who had fallen heir to the fine property the judge had accumulated, no small part of which was the handsome "country seat" of the judge in the neighborhood.
That is how this fine young city man happened to drop in on the Squire so unceremoniously. He had learned of Kate's return from Boston and was hastening to pay his respects to the pretty girl. To say he was astounded to find Anna on the spot is putting it mildly. He believed she had learned of his good fortune and had followed him, to make disagreeable exactions. It put him in a rage and it cost him a strong effort to conceal it before the Squire.
"Walk right in," said the Squire, beaming with hospitality. Sanderson entered and the girl found herself alone in the twilight. Anna sat on the bench by the well-curb and faced despair. She was physically so weak from her long and recent illness that the unexpected interview with Sanderson left her faint and exhausted. The momentary flare up of her righteous indignation at Sanderson's outrageous proposition that she should go away had sapped her strength and she made ready to meet one of the great crises of life with nerveless, trembling body and a mind incapable of action.
She pressed her throbbing head on the cool stones of the well-curb and prayed for light. What could she do—where could she go? Her fate rose up before her like a great stone prison wall at which she beat with naked bleeding hand and the stones still stood in all their mightiness.
How could she cope with such heartless cruelty as that of Sanderson? All that she had asked for was an honest roof in return for honest toil. And there are so few such, thought the helpless girl, remembering with awful vividness her efforts to find work and the pitfalls and barriers that had been put in her way, often in the guise of friendly interest.
She could not go out and face it all over again. It was so bleak—so bleak. There seemed to be no place in the great world that she could fill, no one stood in need of her help, no one required her services. They had no faith in her story that she was looking for work and had no home.
"What, a good-looking young girl like you! What, no home? No, no; we don't need you," or the other frightful alternative.
And yet she must go. Sanderson was right. She could not stay where he was. She must go. But where?
She could hear his voice in the dining-room, entertaining them all with his inimitable gift of story-telling. And then, their laughter—peal on peal of it—and his voice cutting in, with its well-bred modulation: "Yes, I thought it was a pretty good story myself, even if the joke was on me." And again their laughter and applause. She had no weapons with which to fight such cold-blooded selfishness. To stay meant eternal torture. She saw herself forced to face his complacent sneer day after day and death on the roadside seemed preferable.
She tried to face the situation in all its pitiful reality, but the injustice of it cried out for vengeance and she could not think. She could only bury her throbbing temples in her hands and murmur over and over again: "It is all wrong."