no!  No!  Tom, don’t say that, child, you don’t know what you say,” then putting her hands on his shoulders she had looked straight into his face—­he remembered that she had lost some teeth in front, and that her eyes were sweet and kind.  “Some day, dear,” she said, “when you are a man, you will remember with shame and sorrow that you once spoke hard to a broken-hearted, homeless woman.”  Tom had gone home wondering and vaguely unhappy, and could not eat his supper that night.

He remembered it all now, remembered it with a start, and with a sudden tightening of his heart that burned and chilled him.  The hot blood rushed into his head and throbbed painfully.

He looked at the young Englishman who was loading the hay on the rack, with a sudden impulse.  But Arthur was wrapped in his own mask of insular reserve, and so saw nothing of the storm that was sweeping over the boy’s soul.

Then the very spirit of evil laid hold on Tom.  When the powers of good are present in the heart, and can find no outlet in action, they turn to evil.  Tom had the desire to he kind and generous; ambition was stirring in him.  His sullenness and discontent were but the outward signs of the inward ferment.  He could not put into action the powers for good without breaking away, in a measure at least, from his father and mother.

He felt that he had to do something.  He was hungry for the society of other young people like himself.  He wanted life and action and excitement.

There is one place where a young man can always go and find life and gaiety and good-fellowship.  One door stands invitingly open to all.  When the church of God is cold and dark and silent, and the homes of Christ’s followers are closed except to the chosen few, the bar-room throws out its evil welcome to the young man on the street.

Tom had never heard any argument against intemperance, only that it was expensive.  Now he hated all the petty meanness that he had been so carefully taught.

The first evening that Tom went into the bar-room of the Millford hotel he was given a royal welcome.  They were a jolly crowd!  They knew how to enjoy life, Tom told himself.  What’s the good of money if you can’t have a little fun with it?

Tom had never had much money of his own, he had never needed it or thought anything about it.  Now the injustice of it rankled in him.  He had to have money.  It was his.  He worked for it.  He would just take it, and then if it was missed he would tell his father and mother that he had taken it—­taking your own is not stealing—­and he would tell them so and have it out with them.

Thus the enemy sowed the tares.

CHAPTER XXI A CRACK IN THE GRANITE

While Pearl was writing her experiences in her little red book, Mr. and Mrs. Motherwell were in the kitchen below reading a letter which Mr. Motherwell had just brought from the post office.  It read as follows: