I've got to go to the Chair for it!"

Tom! It was Tom talking that way to me. I couldn't bear it.
I made a rush for the door.

He got there, too, and catching me by the shoulder, he lifted his
fist.

But it never fell, Mag. I think I could kill a man who struck me.
But just as I shut my eyes and shivered away from him, while I
waited for the blow, a knock came at the door and Fred Obermuller
walked in.

"Eh? Oh! Excuse me. I didn't know there was anybody else. Nance,
your face is ghastly. What's up?" he said sharply.

He looked from me to Tom--Tom, standing off there ready to spring
on him, to dart past him, to fly out of the window--ready for
anything; only waiting to know what the thing was to be.

My senses came back to me then. The sight of Obermuller, with
those keen, quick eyes behind his glasses, his strong, square
chin, and the whole poise of his head and body that makes men
wait to hear what he has to say; the knowledge that that man was
my friend, mine--Nancy Olden's--lifted me out of the mud I'd sunk
back in, and put my feet again on a level with his.

"Tom," I said slowly, "Mr. Obermuller is a friend of mine.
No--listen! What we've been talking about is settled. Don't bring
it up again. It doesn't interest him and it can't change me; I