Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/265

 it to her, you ungrateful dog, to go back there, and behave yourself. Do you think I care? If it weren't for her God! that it should be in your power to make a woman suffer, and lie sleepless, and watch me as if I were a brute that had driven you out of the house!" He clenched his hands, with a terrible face. "You callous young hound! This is the important thing in life! To make everyone miserable that loves you! To kill the mother that almost gave her life for you once already! To break up the home that sheltered you! Oh, you whelp! You"

"Stop!" Don gasped. The horror of the accusation was more than he could bear to listen to. "I won't—I won't" He caught up his hat and ran to the door. I won't" His father heard him slip and fall on the stairs. He stood holding to the table, until he heard nothing but the noises from the street echoing in a dull rumble in the air-court outside the window. Then he sat down to wait.

Don did not return.

He did not return until late at night, and then he came limping, to find Bert Pittsey sitting alone at the dining-table working on one of his "specials." Conroy had packed his trunk and departed with his father. There had been no messages left for Don, except a note from his uncle enclosing a small cheque and advising him to return home.

He sat down to write a letter of frantic affection to