"Mother, can you do without my help at
supper? I want to lie down and be alone."

"Of course; I won't need you; everything is attended to, and Hettie
come while you was away. She fairly danced when she heard you had gone
to drive with Mr. Westerfelt. She hopes you will speak to him about
Toot. She's heard from him. He wants to come back home and marry her,
if Mr. Westerfelt can be persuaded to withdraw the charges. Do you
think he would, daughter?"

"Oh, I don't know, mother!" Harriet slowly ascended the stairs to her
room, and Mrs. Floyd sat down in the darkening parlor to devise some
scheme; she finally concluded that Harriet was too much in love to
manage her own affairs, and that she would take them in hand.

"He loves her, that's certain," she mused, "and he is a man who can be
managed if he is worked just right." She had evidently arrived at an
idea as to what should be done in the emergency, for she put on her
cloak and hat and went up to Harriet's room. The girl sat near the
bed, her head bent over to a pillow.

"Daughter," Mrs. Floyd said, laying her hand on Harriet's head, "you
stay here, and don't come down-stairs to-night for all you do. I'm not
going to have people see you looking like that. It will set 'em to
talking, after you've been to ride with Mr. Westerfelt. Stay here;
I'll have Hettie fetch you something to eat."

Harriet did not look up or reply, and Mrs. Floyd descended to the
street.

Chapter XXIII

Westerfelt was in the yard back of the stable. He had just started
home when he saw a muffled figure enter the front door, and heard Mrs.
Floyd asking Washburn if he were in.

"Here I am," he called out; and he approached her as she waited at the
door.

"I want to see you a minute, Mr. Westerfelt," she said. "Can you walk
back a piece with me?"

"Yes," he replied. "I'm going up to Bradley's to supper."

Outside it was dark; only the lights from the fire in the store and the
big lamp on a post in front of the hotel pierced the gloom. A few
yards from the stable she turned and faced him.

"Do you intend to kill my child?" she asked, harshly.

"What do you mean?" he answered.

"I mean that you will literally kill her--that's exactly what I mean.
You've treated her worse than a brute. What did you do to her this
evening? Tell me; I want to know. I have never seen her act so
before."

He stopped, leaned against a fence, and stared at her.

"I've done nothing;