essly. "Yes; a
wickedness! She swore it, but she did not mean it. Even had she
meant it, she was not responsible. . . . No, mother, you need not
look at me so. I have been thinking, and father shall hear the truth
for once. Had he been kind--had he even been just--Hetty had never
run away. Oh, sir, you are a good man! but you are seldom kind, and
you are rarely just. You plan what seems best to you--best for Sam
and Jacky and Charles--best for us too, maybe. But of us, apart from
your wishes, you never think at all. Oh, yes again, you are good;
but your temper makes life a torture--"

"Silence!" Mr. Wesley thundered out suddenly.

But the thunder did not affect Molly one whit.

"You may do what you will to me, sir; but you have heard the truth.
You are a tyrant to those you love: and now in your tyranny you are
going to do what even in your tyranny you have never done before--a
downright wickedness. Thwarted abroad, you have drunk of power at
home till you have come to persuade yourself that our souls are
yours. They are not. You may condemn Hetty to misery as you have
driven--yes, driven--her to sin: but her soul is not yours and this
secret of hers is mine not yours!"

But here standing beside the table she began to sway, then to sob and
laugh unnaturally. Mrs. Wesley, instantly composed at sight of a
physical breakdown, stepped to her and caught her by both wrists, but
not before she had pointed a finger point-blank at her father's gray
face.

"But--but--he is ridiculous!" she gasped between her short outcries.
"Look at him! A ridiculous little man!"

Her mother took her by both shoulders and forced her from the room,
almost carried her upstairs, dashed cold water over her face and left
her to sob out her hysterics on her bed. It had been a weak,
undignified exit: but those last words, which she never remembered to
have uttered, her father never forgot. In all the rest of her short
life Molly never had a sign from him that he remembered her outbreak.
Also he never again spoke a harsh word to her.

While her mother bent over her, waiting for the attack to subside, a
knock sounded below stairs. Molly heard it, raised herself on the
bed for a moment, staring wildly, then sank back helpless, and her
moaning began afresh.

Mrs. Wesley turned her face away quickly; and with that her gaze,
passing out through the garret window, fell on a figure crossing the
yard towards the house.

It was He