"I'm not to blame," he said surlily, "if she did. It was her fault."

Aaron Wickersham turned on him.

"Stop," he said in a quiet voice. "Not another word. One other word,
and, by God! I'll box your head off your shoulders. Say what you please
about me, but not one word against her. I will take you from college and
put you to sweeping the floor of this office at twenty dollars a month,
and make you live on your salary, too, or starve, if you say one
other word."

Ferdy's face blanched at the implacable anger that blazed in his
father's eyes, but even more at the coldness of the gleam. It made
him shiver.

A little later young Wickersham entered his father's office, and though
he was not much liked by the older clerks, it soon appeared that he had
found a congenial occupation and one for which he had a natural gift.
For the first time in his life he appeared inclined to work.



CHAPTER V

THE RIDGE COLLEGE

The school over which Gordon had undertaken to preside was not a very
advanced seminary of learning, and possibly the young teacher did not
impart to his pupils a great deal of erudition.