er I made him was a good one. Comfort your heart,
lass. If he's gone, he will return. When the Devil holds the whip, he
makes a hard bargain, and drives fast. When the boy is hard pressed,
he will be glad to return to his father's house."

"Richard's valise is gone. The maid says he came late yesterday after
I was gone, and took it away with him."

"They are likely gone together."

"But Peter's things are all here. No, they would never go like that
and not bid me good-by."

The Elder threw out his hands with his characteristic downward gesture
of impatience. "I have no way of knowing, more than you. It is no
doubt that Richard has become a ne'er-do-weel. He felt shame to tell
us he was going a journey on the Sabbath day."

"Oh, Peter, I think not. Peter, be just. You know your son was never
one to let the Devil drive; he is like yourself, Peter. And as for
Richard, Peter Junior would never think so much of him if he were a
ne'er-do-weel."

"Women are foolish and fond. It is their nature, and perhaps that is
how we love them most, but the men should rule, for their own good. A
man should be master in his own house. When the lad returns, the door
is open to him. That is enough."

With a sorrowful heart he left her, and truth to tell, the sorrow was
more for his wife's hurt than for his own. The one great tenderness of
his life was his feeling for her, and this she felt rather than knew;
but he believed himself absolutely right and that the hurt was
inevitable, and for her was intensified by her weakness and fondness.

As for Hester, she turned away from the door and went quietly about
her well-ordered house, directing the maidservant and looking
carefully over her husband's wardrobe. Then she did the same for Peter
Junior's, and at last, taking her basket of mending, she sat in the
large, lace-curtained window looking out toward the west--the
direction from which Peter Junior would be likely to come. For how
long she would sit there during the days to come--waiting--she little
knew.

She was comforted by the thought of the talk she had had with him the
day before. She knew he was upright, and she felt that this
quarrel--if it had been a quarrel--with his father would surely be
healed; and then, there was Betty to call him back. The love of a girl
was a good thing for a man. It would be stronger to draw him and hold
him than love of home or of mother; it was the divine way for
humanity, and it was a good way, a