"You can wait, if you want to;" but there, her anxiety getting the better of her resentment, she added, "Is she comin' back soon ?" "I'll wait," said Dr.Howe briefly, walking past her into John Ward's study.
"Insufferable people!" he muttered.

He looked about him as he entered the room, and the poverty of the bookshelves did not escape his keen eyes, nor the open volume of Jonathan Edwards on the writing-table.

There was a vase beside it, which held one dried and withered rose; but it is doubtful if the pathos of the flower which was to await Helen's return would have softened him, even if he could have known it.

He stopped and glanced at the book, and then began to read it, holding it close to his eyes, while, with his other hand behind him, he grasped his hat and stick.
He read the frequently quoted passages from Edwards, that God holds man over hell as a man might hold a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, with the satisfaction one feels in detecting a proof of the vicious nature of an enemy.

"Ward is naturally cruel," he said to himself.