Laura James was at the screen before him: she flung it open.
“Get away! Get away!” he cried, full of shame and anger. “You stay out of this.” For a moment he despised her for seeing his hurt.
“Oh, let me help you, my dear,” Laura James whispered. Her eyes were wet, but she was not afraid.
Father and son plunged chaotically down the wide dark hall, Eliza, weeping and making gestures, just before them.
“Take him in here, boy. Take him in here,” she whispered, motioning to a large bed-room on the upper side of the house. Eugene propelled his father through a blind passage of bath room, and pushed him over on the creaking width of an iron bed.
“You damned scoundrel!” Gant yelled, again trying to reap him down with the long arm, “let me up or I’ll kill you!”
“For God’s sake, papa,” he implored angrily, “try to quiet down. Every one in town can hear you.”
“To hell with them!” Gant roared. “Mountain Grills—all of them, fattening upon my heart’s-blood. They have done me to death, as sure as there’s a God in heaven.”
Eliza appeared in the door, her face contorted by weeping.
“Son, can’t you do something to stop him?” she said. “He’ll ruin us all. He’ll drive every one away.”
Gant struggled to stand erect when he saw her. Her white face stirred him to insanity.
“There it is! There! There! Do you see! The fiend-face I know so well, gloating upon my misery. Look at it! Look! Do you see its smile of evil cunning? Greeley, Will, The Hog, The Old Major! The Tax Collector will get it all, and I shall die in the gutter!”
“If it hadn’t been for me,” Eliza began, stung to retaliation, “you’d have died there long ago.”
“Mama, for God’s sake!” the boy cried. “Don’t stand there talking to him! Can’t you see what it does to him! Do something, in heaven’s name! Get Helen! Where is she?”
“I’ll make an end to it all!” Gant yelled, staggering erect. “I’ll do for us both now.”
Eliza vanished.
