He heard the door open and shut. After a moment he looked around. Kendrick Bishop stood watching him.
Orde lit the gas.
“Hello, Kendrick!” said he. “Sit down.” The boy made no reply. Orde looked at him curiously, and saw that he was suffering from an intense excitement. His frame trembled convulsively, his lips were white, his face went red and pale by turns. Evidently he had something to say, but could not yet trust his voice. Orde sat down and waited.
“You've got to let my mother alone,” he managed to say finally.
“I have done nothing to your mother, Kendrick,” said Orde kindly.
“You've brought her to the point of death,” asserted Keudrick violently. “You're hounding her to her grave. You're turning those she loves best against her.”
Orde thought to catch the echo of quotation in these words.
“Did your mother send you to me?” he asked.
“If we had any one else worth the name of man in the family, I wouldn't have to come,” said Kendrick, almost in the manner of one repeating a lesson.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Orde after a moment of thought.