ather her wits. Spawn
strode to her door, and found it fastened on the inside.

"Jetta, open at once!"

He thumped with his heavy fists. Confused and trembling she unsealed
it, and he dragged her out into the sunlight of the garden.

"Now then, Jetta, you have heard some of what we have been saying,
perhaps?"

"Father--"

"About this young American? This Grant?"

She stood cringing in his grasp. Spawn had never used physical
violence with Jetta. But he was white with fury now.

"Father, you--you are hurting me."

Perona interposed. "Wait Spawn! Not so rough! Let me talk to her.
Jetta, _chica mia_, your Greko is worried--"

"To the hell with that!" Spawn shouted. But he released the girl and
she sank trembling to the little seat by the pergola.

Spawn stood over her. "Jetta, look at me! Did you meet--did you talk
to Grant last night?"

She wanted to deny it. She clung to his angry gaze. But the habit of
all her life of truthfulness with him prevailed.

"Y-yes," she admitted.

CHAPTER IX

_Trapped_

"Spawn! Hold!"

There was an instant when it seemed that Spawn would strike the girl.
The blood drained from his face, leaving his dark eyes blazing like
torches. His hamlike fist went back, but Perona sprang for him and
clutched him.

"Hold, Spawn: I will talk to her. Jetta, so you did--"

The torrent of emotion swept Spawn; weakened him so that instead of
striking Jetta, he yielded to Perona's clutch and dropped his arm. For
a moment he stood gazing at his daughter.

"Is it so? And all my efforts, going for nothing, just like your
mother!" He no more than murmured it, and as Perona pushed him, he
sank to the bench beside Jetta. But did not touch her, just sat
staring. And she stared back, both of then aghast at the enormity of
this, her first disobedience.

I never had opportunity to know Spawn, except for the few times which
I have mentioned. Perhaps he was at heart a pathetic figure. I think,
looking back on it now that Spawn is dead, that there was a pathos to
him. Spawn had loved his wife, Jetta's mother. As a young man he had
brought her to the Lowlands to seek his fortune. And when Jetta was an
infant, his wife had left him. Run away, abandoning him and their
child.

* * * * *

Perhaps Spawn was never mentally normal after that. He had reared
Jetta with the belief that sin was inherent in all females. It
obsessed him. Warped and twisted all his outlook as