Ellwell nodded assent.
"And now she is making it uncomfortable for you."
"I am trying to find something to do," the young fellow protested. "Then I won't trouble them; but if I go down there the old man will fling me out of the house."
In short, Jarvis Thornton rose early the next morning, and before the sun had heated the road, was on his way to the Four Corners. There was not much that he could do, after all, in his pitiful errand; at least, for the mother. One more insult for her to accept, to be borne in stupid passivity. But for the daughter who had to live, it would be a different question; and by the time he had reached Middleton, he had not made up his mind how the tale was to be told.
It was warm when he walked his horse over the gravelled drive at the Four Corners. Mrs. Ellwell and her elder daughter were sitting on the piazza sewing. Pete was washing carriages; the dogs were asleep in the grass. The place was quiet and in peace. The women received him cordially; a bright color spread over the girl's face with a contented smile that seemed to speak intimately to him. He plunged into his business quickly, putting the case sympathetically before them. They listened without a word, the girl's face trembling and twitching slightly. Ruby had joined them, and Thornton interrupted his story, but Mrs. Ellwell motioned him to go ahead. While he was talking he hunted about for some bit of light to throw on the situation at the end. "He wants to go away, and it might be best, if we can find something for him. I have an uncle in Minnesota on a railroad. He might find a little place to transplant him to." He stopped.
"You have an uncle in Minnesota," Mrs. Ellwell repeated, mechanically, her dry eyes staring idealess at him. "You are very, very kind." She rose and walked into the house.
"Fool," Ruby muttered; her dark face flamed up angrily. Thornton noticed how much she resembled her handsome father. She had more fire in her than Roper second. "I suppose he hadn't pluck enough to come home with his own story. Father will be pretty mad. What did he marry that woman for!"
"Well," Thornton answered, calmly. "Perhaps we can build on that, the fact that he did marry her. That seems to me the most promising part of it."
The young girl cast a contemptuous glance at him and rustled into the house after her mother. Miss Ellwell had not uttered a word; her face was bent over her work; and he noticed a few suspicious spots on the dark linen cloth she was hemming. He turned his face away to the sunny lawn and the dark, full-leaved trees that lay beyond the road. A flock of sparrows were rowing in sharp tones among the leaves. The house-dog picked himself up lazily and walked over to Thornton, placing a wet muzzle on his trousers. The place was so peaceful, such a nest of an old Puritan! And here were the demons that the divine had warred against holding his home as their arsenal. When he permitted himself to turn his face to the girl at his side, she was grave and pale, and somehow exhausted. All the weariness of the struggle between flesh and will seated itself in her heavy-lidded, sad eyes.
"You must be a brave woman and help him," Thornton said, feeling the conventionality and silliness of any remark. "He mustn't be hounded out of here like a dog, but made to feel that he can make a decent future." She nodded. "It isn't the money," she said at last. "Though I can't see where it will come from. Nor the marriage, but the perpetual disgrace. It goes on increasing. We are all bad, worn out; dear old grandpapa was the last good one. It is what you call a curse, a disintegration. Why struggle? If we could all go to sleep and sleep it off? There is nothing ahead, nothing ahead!"