"And then there's the fifty pounds a year, dearest, that your poor father saved from the wreck; surely with that as well we can get on here quite comfortably."
Joan dropped the letter, something seemed to turn very cold inside her. Even that, then! She meant to take even that from them. "But, Mother, there's Milly's future and—and mine," she finished lamely.
Mrs. Ogden flushed. "I don't understand you," she said.
"Oh, Mother, don't make it all so terribly difficult, you know what I mean; you know quite well that Milly and I want to work for our living. We shall need the little he's left us if we're ever to make good; it's bad enough, God knows, but we might manage somehow. Oh, Mother, dear! won't you be reasonable?"
Mrs. Ogden's mouth tightened. "I see," she said; "you and Milly wish to leave home, to leave me now that I have no one else to care for me. You want to hide me away in a tenement house, while you two lead the life that seems amusing to you. This home is to be broken up and I am to go to London—my health doesn't matter. Well, I suppose I'd be better dead and then you'd be rid of the trouble of me. Your father must be turning in his grave, I should think, feeling as he did about your ridiculous notions. And what a father he was, devoted to you both; he killed himself working and striving to make money for you, and this is the gratitude he gets." She began to sob convulsively. "Oh, James!" she wailed, "James, James, why did you ever leave me!"
Joan got up. "Stop it!" she said harshly. "Stop it at once, Mother. You know you're unjust and that you're not telling the truth, and as for my father, he had—— Oh, never mind, I won't say it, but stop crying and listen to me. Milly and I are young, we've got all our lives before us and we're unhappy here, don't you understand? We are not happy, we want to go out into the world and do something; we must, I tell you, we can't stay here and rot. It's our right to go and no one has any business to stop us; you least of all, who brought us into the world. Did we ask to be born? No, you and father had us for your own pleasure. Very well, then, now you must let us go for ours; it's your duty to help us because you are our mother and we need your help. If you won't help us we shall go just the same, because we must, because this thing is stronger than we are, but——"
Mrs. Ogden clutched at Joan's hand, she dragged her to her, kissing her again and again. "You fool!" she said passionately. "Can't you understand that it's not Milly I care about, or the money, but you; will you never see that I love you more than anything else in the world?"