“Send for them, have them here at once,” commanded Mr. Worthington, without listening to this.

“If you take my advice, you will do nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Flint, who, as usual, had the whole situation at his fingers’ ends.  He had taken the trouble to inform himself about the girl, and he had discovered, shrewdly enough, that she was the kind which might be led, but not driven.  If Mr. Flint’s advice had been listened to, this story might have had quite a different ending.  But Mr. Flint had not reached the stage where his advice was always listened to, and he had a maddened man to deal with now.  At that moment, as if fate had determined to intervene, the housemaid came into the room.

“Mr. Dodd to see you, sir,” she said.

“Show him in,” shouted Mr. Worthington; “show him in!”

Mr. Dodd was not a man who could wait for a summons which he had felt in his bones was coming.  He was ordinarily, as we have seen, officious.  But now he was thoroughly frightened.  He had seen the great man in the barouche as he drove past the hardware store, and he had made up his mind to go up at once, and have it over with.  His opinions were formed now, He put a smile on his face when he was a foot outside of the library door.

“This is a great pleasure, Mr. Worthington, a great pleasure, to see you back,” he said, coming forward.  “I callated—­”

But the great man sat in his chair, and made no attempt to return the greeting.

“Mr. Dodd, I thought you were my friend,” he said.

Mr. Dodd went all to pieces at this reception.

“So I be, Mr. Worthington—­so I be,” he cried.  “That’s why I’m here now.  I’ve b’en a friend of yours ever since I can remember—­never fluctuated.  I’d rather have chopped my hand off than had this happen—­so I would.  If I could have foreseen what she was, she’d never have had the place, as sure as my name’s Levi Dodd.”

If Mr. Dodd had taken the trouble to look at the seneschal’s face, he would have seen a well-defined sneer there.

“And now that you know what she is,” cried Mr. Worthington, rising and smiting the pile of letters on his desk, “why do you keep her there an instant?”

Mr. Dodd stopped to pick up the letters, which had flown over the floor.  But the great man was now in the full tide of his anger.

“Never mind the letters,” he shouted; “tell me why you keep her there.”

“We callated we’d wait and see what steps you’d like taken,” said the trembling townsman.

“Steps!  Steps!  Good God!  What kind of man are you to serve in such a place when you allow the professed ward of Jethro Bass—­of Jethro Bass, the most notoriously depraved man in this state, to teach the children of this town.  Steps!  How soon can you call your committee together?”

“Right away,” answered Mr. Dodd, breathlessly.  He would have gone on to exculpate himself, but Mr. Worthington’s inexorable finger was pointing at the door.