“I couldn't go to sleep, Cynthia,” she said, “till I knew you were safe at home.”
“Well, I'm here all right, mother, so go back to bed and don't catch your death of cold.”
The old woman moved across the room to Cynthia's bed and sat down on it. “I heard you coming down the road and went to the front window. I had sent Brother Hillhouse for you, but it was Nelson Floyd who brought you home. Didn't Brother Hillhouse get there before you left?”
“Yes, but I had already promised Mr. Floyd.” The old woman met her daughter's glance steadily. “I suppose all I'll do or say won't do a bit o' good. Cynthia, you know what I'm afraid of.”
The girl stood straight, her face set and firm, her great, dreamy eyes flashing.
“Yes, and that's the insult of it. Mother, you almost make me think you are judging my nature by your own, when you were at my age. I tell you you will drive me too far. A girl at a certain time of her life wants a mother's love and sympathy; she doesn't want threats, fears, and disgraceful suspicions.”
Mrs. Porter covered her face with her bony hands and groaned aloud.
“You are confessing,” she said, “that you are tied an' bound to him by the heart and that there isn't anything left for you but the crumbs he lets fall from his profligate table. You confess that you are lyin' at his feet, greedily lappin' up what he deigns to drop to you and the rest of those—”
“Stop!” Cynthia sprang to her mother and laid her small hand heavily on the thin shoulder. “Stop, you know you are telling a deliberate—” She paused, turned, and went slowly back to the bureau. “God forgive me! God help me remember my duty to her as my mother. She's old; she's out of her head.”
“There, you said something then!” The old woman had drawn herself erect and sat staring at her daughter, her hands on her sharp knees. “That reminds me of something else. You know my sister Martha got to worryin' when she was along about my age over her law-suit matters, and kept it up till her brain gave way. Folks always said she and I were alike. Dr. Strong has told me time after time to guard against worry or I'd go out and kill myself as she did. I haven't mentioned this before, but I do now. I can't keep down my fears and suspicions, while the very air is full of that man's conduct. He's a devil, I tell you—a devil in human shape. Your pretty face has caught his fancy, and your holding him off, so far, has made him determined to crush you like a plucked flower. Why don't he go to the Duncans and the Prices and lay his plans? Because those men shoot at the drop of a hat. He knows your pa is not of that stamp and that you haven't any men kin to defend our family honor. He hasn't any of his own; nobody knows who or what he is. My opinion is that he's a nobody and knows it, and out of pure spite is trying to pull everybody else down to his level.”