Everett forgot the dripping woman before him as a dark thought leaped into his mind. He could now be at ease with his conscience! Of a sudden, he felt himself sink from the radius of Horace Shellington's life--down to the birth level of the boy and girl next door. It dawned upon him, as his mind swept back over his boyhood days, that Horace had ever been better than he, with a natural abhorrence against evil.
When Scraggy again spoke, he turned burning eyes upon her. How he hated her, and how he hated the man who called himself his father, wherever he might be! He shut his teeth with a grit, and, unmindful of the cat, bent over Screech Owl. He forced her head so far back that she moaned and loosened her hold upon Black Pussy, who sprang snarling into the corner.
"If you ever repeat that story to anyone, that I'm your son, I'll kill you! Now go!"
Scraggy began to cry weakly, and Black Pussy howled as if in sympathy.
"Shut up, and keep that cat quiet! You'll draw down the servants. Now listen to me! You say you're my mother--but, if you ever breathe it to anyone, or come round here again, I shall certainly kill you!"
The thoughts began to scurry wildly in Scraggy's head. Everett's threat to kill her had not penetrated the demented brain, and his rough handling had been her only fright. She could think of nothing but that Lem was waiting for them at the scow.
She dragged herself away from Everett, and with a torn skirt wiped her ghastly face. She dropped the rag to grope dazedly for the cat, and whispered: "Ye can do anything ye want to with yer ole mammy, if ye'll come back with me to Ithaca!"
"Ithaca, Ithaca!" Everett repeated dazedly. "Was that child you spoke of born in Ithaca?"
"Yep, on Cayuga Lake."
"Get up, get up, or I'll--I'll--" His voice came faintly to Screech Owl, and she moaned.
The man's mind went back to his Cornell days when he had been considered one of the richest boys in the university. His sudden degradation, the falling of his family air-castles, made him double his fists--and with his blow Scraggy dropped into a motionless heap.
His bloodshot eyes took in her prostrate form, guarded by the fluffed black cat, and his one thought was to kill her--to obliterate her entirely from his life. He stepped nearer, and Black Pussy's ferocious yowl was the only remonstrance as he stirred Scraggy roughly with his foot.