ies I should not have come in. If it is a crime to love a young
lady, then I have committed a crime. You have only to exercise your
authority as master of this house and ask me to go."

"I do ask you to go, Mr. Wehle."

It was the first time that Samuel Anderson had ever called him Mr.
Wehle. It was an involuntary tribute to the dignity of the young man, as
he stood at bay. "Mr. Wehle, _indeed_!" said Mrs. Anderson.

August had hoped Julia would say a word in his behalf. But she was too
much, cowed by her mother's fierce passion. So like a criminal going to
prison, like a man going to his own funeral, August Wehle went down the
hall toward the stairs, which were at the back of it. Humphreys
instinctively retreated into his room. Mrs. Anderson glared on the young
man as he went by, but he did not turn his head even when he passed
Julia. His heart and hope were all gone; in his mortification and defeat
there seemed to him nothing left but his unbroken pride to sustain him.
He had descended two or three steps, when Julia suddenly glided forward
and said with a tremulous voice: "You aren't going without telling me
good-by, August?"

"Jule Anderson! what do you mean?" cried her mother. But the hall was
narrow by the stairway, and Jonas, by standing close to Cynthy Ann, in
an unconscious sort of a way managed to keep Mrs. Anderson back; else
she would have laid violent hands on her daughter.

When August lifted his eyes and saw her face full of tenderness and her
hand reached over the balusters to him, he seemed to have been suddenly
lifted from perdition to bliss. The tears ran unrestrained upon his
cheeks, he reached up and took her hand.

"Good-by, Jule! God bless you!" he said huskily, and went out into the
night, happy in spite of all.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE MOTHER.

Out of the door he went, happy in spite of all the mistakes he had made
and of all the _contretemps_ of his provoking misadventure; happy in
spite of the threat of arrest for burglary. For nearly a minute August
Wehle was happy in that perfect way in which people of quiet tempers are
happy--happy without fluster. But before he had passed the gate, he
heard a scream and a wild hysterical laugh; he heard a hurrying of feet
and saw a moving of lights. He would fain have turned back to find out
what the matter was, he had so much of interest in that house, but he
remembered that he had been turned out and that he could not go back.
The feeling of outl