'I have.'
'Then Glory and her mother are your tenants.'
'They are mine.'
'I hope they will find you an easy landlord.'
'I reckon they will not,' said Elijah shortly.
'Come along, Glory!' he called, abandoning the topic and the uncongenial speaker, and turning to the girl. 'Help me with my boat.'
'Don't be gone for long, Mehalah!' said her mother.
'I shall be back directly.'
Elijah Rebow kept his mouth closed. His face was as though cast in iron, but a living fire smouldered within and broke out through the eye-sockets, as lava will lie hard and cold, a rocky crust with a fiery fluid core within that at intervals glares out at fissures. He did not utter a word, but he watched Glory go out with De Witt, and then a grim smile curdled his rugged cheeks. He seated himself opposite the widow, and spread his great hands over the fire. He was pondering. The shadow of his strongly featured face and expanded hands was cast on the opposite wall; as the flame flickered, the shadow hands seemed to open and shut, to stretch and grasp.
The gold had died out of the sky and only a pearly twilight crept in at the window, the evening heaven seen through the pane was soft and cool in tone as the tints of the Glaucus gull. The old woman remained silent. She was afraid of the new landlord. She had long known him, longer known of him, she had never liked him, and she liked less to have him now in a place of power over her.