Young Hargrave left the room, went to the garden where they could see him
from the windows and call him if they wished. Arthur hung his head before
his mother's gaze. "It isn't _his_ will," he muttered. "Father in his
right mind would never have made such a will."

"He never would have made such a will if his children had been in their
right mind," replied his mother sternly; and sternness they had never
before seen in those features or heard in that voice. "I know now what he
was broodin' over for weeks. Yes--" and her voice, which rose shrill, was
the shriek of the tempest within her--"and I know now what made him
break so sudden. I noticed you both driftin' off into foolishness,
ashamed of the ways of your parents, ashamed of your parents, too. But I
didn't give no attention to it, because I thought it was the silliness of
children and that you'd outgrow it. But _he_ always did have a good head
on him, and he saw that you were ridin' loose-rein to ruin--to be like
them Whitneys. Your pa not in his right mind? I see _God_ in that will."

She paused, but only for breath to resume: "And you, Arthur Ranger, what
was in your head when you came here to-day? Grief and love and
willingness to carry out your dead father's last wishes? No! You came
thinking of how you were to benefit by his death. Don't deny! I saw your
face when you found you weren't going to get your father's money."

"Mother!" exclaimed Arthur.

She waved him down imperiously; and he was afraid before her, before her
outraged love for her outraged dead. "Take care how you stamp on my
Hiram's grave, Arthur Ranger!"

"He didn't mean it--you know he didn't," pleaded Adelaide. At that moment
she could not think of this woman as her mother, but only as the wife,
the widow.

But Ellen's instinct told her that her son, though silent, was still in
traitorous rebellion against her idol. And she kept on at him: "With
Hiram hardly out of the house, you've forgot all he did for you, all he
left you--his good name, his good example. You think only of his money.
I've heard you say children owe nothing to their parents, that parents
owe everything to the children. Well, that's so. But it don't mean what
you think. It don't mean that parents ought to _ruin_ their children.
And your pa didn't spare himself to do his duty by you--not even though
it killed him. Yes, it killed him! You'd better go away and fall on your
knees and ask God to forgive you for having short