I knew she was not.

She has gone with that villain." Richard did not mean to say that last.

It dropped from him mechanically, and in an instant his mother seized upon it, demanding what he meant, and who was the villain referred to.

Richard tried to put her off, but she would know what he meant, and so to her and his three brothers he told as little as he could and make any kind of a story, and as he talked his heart hardened toward Ethie, who had done him this wrong.

It seemed a great deal worse when put into words, and the whole expression of Richard's face was changed when he had finished speaking, while he was conscious of feeling much as he did that night when he denounced Ethie so terribly to her face.