"
"I wish I knew what to do," said Elliot.
"I think you ought to tell what you know if the man is insane."
"Well, I will tell," said Elliot, almost fiercely. "That man is
Andrew Bolton. He has come home after eighteen years of imprisonment,
which have left him terribly weak in mind and body. Don't you think
people will forgive him now?"
A swift vindictiveness flashed into the woman's face. "I don't know,"
said she.
"Why in the world don't you know, Miss Daggett?"
Then the true reason for the woman's rancor was disclosed. It was a
reason as old as the human race, a suspicion as old as the human
race, which she voiced. "I have said from the first," she declared,
"that nobody would come here, as that girl did, and do so much unless
she had a motive."
Elliot stared at her. "Then you hate that poor child for trying to
make up for the wrong her father did; and that, and not his
wrongdoing, influences you?"
Miss Daggett stared at him. Her face slowly reddened. "I wouldn't put
it that way," she said.
"What way would you put it?" demanded Elliot mercilessly. He was so
furious that he forgot to hold the umbrella over Miss Daggett, and
the rain drove in her hard, unhappy face. She did not seem to notice.
She had led a poisoned life, in a narrow rut of existence, and toxic
emotions had become as her native atmosphere of mind. Now she seemed
to be about to breathe in a better air of humanity, and she choked
under it.
"If--" she stammered, "that was--her reason, but--I always felt--that
nobody ever did such things without--as they used to say--an ax to
grind.
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