“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 shortened your father’s life.  And I tell you, Arthur Ranger, till you change your heart, you’re no son of mine.”

“Mother!  Mother!” cried Arthur, rushing from the room.

Mrs. Ranger looked vacantly at the place where he had been, dropped into a chair and burst into a storm of tears.

“Call him back, mother,” entreated Del.

“No! no!” sobbed Ellen Ranger.  “He spoke agin’ my dead!  I’ll not forgive him till his heart changes.”

Adelaide knelt beside her mother and tried to put her arms around her.  But her mother shrank away.  “Don’t touch me!” she cried; “leave me alone.  God forgive me for having bore children that trample on their father’s grave.  I’ll put you both out of the house—­” and she started up and her voice rose to a shriek.  “Yes—­I’ll put you both out!  Your foolishness has ate into you like a cancer, till you’re both rotten.  Go to the Whitneys.  Go among the lepers where you belong.  You ain’t fit for decent people.”