in a bewildered way, that he did not speak the boy's language. And yet
he could not give up trying to communicate with him,--shouting at him,
so to speak, as one shouts at a foreigner when trying to make oneself
understood; for surely there must be some one word that would reach
Sam's mind, some one touch that would stir his heart! Yet when he
brought his perplexity to Dr. Lavendar, he was only told to hold his
tongue and keep his hands off. The senior warden said to himself,
miserably, that he was afraid Dr. Lavendar was getting old, "Well, I
mustn't bother you," he said; "as for Sam, I suppose he will go his
own gait! I don't know where he gets his stubbornness from. I myself
am the most reasonable man in the world. All I ever ask is to be
allowed to follow my own judgment. I asked his mother if obstinacy was
a characteristic of her family, and she assured me it was not.
Certainly Eliza herself has no will of her own. I don't think a good
woman ever has. And, as I say, I never insisted upon my own way in my
life--except, of course, in matters where I knew I was right."

"Of course," said Dr. Lavendar.




CHAPTER IX


The parting at the Stuffed Animal House the next morning was dreary
enough. The day broke heavy with threatening rain. The man, after that
brief flaming up of the embers of burned-out passion, had fallen into
a weariness which he did not attempt to conceal. But the woman--being
a woman--still tried to warm herself at the poor ashes, wasting her