The mother was aghast. "Why, Viola Lambert! What a terrible thing to say!"
"I can't help it, mother--that is my decision."
Clarke blundered a third time. "I won't release you! This mood is all the influence of those accursed pagans we have just left. That man Serviss has been an evil influence upon you from the very first. He has no God in his heart. You must keep away from that home--it is destructive."
"It is not!" she retorted, fiercely. "It is beautiful and honest and--sane, and I'm going there as often as they will let me--and I'm going to leave the Pratt house to-morrow! I will not stay there another day."
"There are others to be consulted about this," he grimly answered. "You have tried playing truant before."
She was now in full tide of revolt. "I am going to leave that house if I fall dead in the streets. I am going if 'they' choke me black in the face."
He sneered. "I know where you are going!"
At this moment she hated him and everything he stood for, and her voice was hoarse with her passion. "I don't care what you say or what you do, I will not be hounded and driven around like a slave by you or Simeon Pratt any longer. I'm going to have a little life of my own if 'they' tear me in pieces for it."
This outburst, so much more intense than any which had preceded it, alarmed Clarke and appalled Mrs. Lambert, who took her daughter in her arm with soothing words and caresses. "There, there, dearie! Don't worry--don't excite yourself. Father will not insist on your doing anything that will be harmful. He will protect you."
The girl, sobbing in reaction, bowed to the maternal bosom, feeling once more her own helplessness, receiving no help from her mother's sympathy, which was merely superficial. Her only hope of release lay in the strong, bright, self-reliant, humorous people she had just left, those to whom her grandfather and his "band" were less than shadows. They alone could save her from the despairing madness which she felt creeping upon her like a beast in the night. Her nerves, strung to dangerous tension, gave away utterly, and Clarke, realizing this, ceased to chide, and the ride ended without another word.
Pratt, who had been waiting for hours with the angry impatience of senility, met them at the door, truculent as a terrier. "What time o' night do you call this?" he asked, with insulting inflection.