Janet was plainly reminding herself that she must not forget that she was a lady and a marchioness.  In a manner in which quiet dignity was mingled with a delicate soul’s shrinking from such brawling vulgarity as this that was being forced upon her, she said, looking at Adelaide:  “Papa never intended that my dowry should be taken out of my share.  It was a present.”  She looked calmly at her mother.  “Just like your jewels, mamma.”  She turned her clear, luminous eyes upon Ross.  “Just like the opportunities he gave you to get your independent fortune.”

Mrs. Whitney, trembling so that she could scarcely articulate, retorted:  “At the time he said, and I told you, it was to come out of your share.  And how you thanked me and kissed me and—­” She stretched toward Ellen her shaking old woman’s hands, made repellent by the contrasting splendor of magnificent black pearl rings.  “O Ellen, Ellen!” she quavered.  “I think my heart will burst!”

“You did say he said so,” replied Janet softly, “but he never told me.”

“You—­you—­” stuttered Ross, flinging out his arms at her in a paroxysm of fury.

“I refuse to discuss this any further,” said Janet, drawing herself up in the full majesty of her black-robed figure and turning her long shapely back on Ross.  “Mrs. Ranger, I’m sure you and Del realize that mother and Ross are terribly upset, and not—­”

“They’ll realize that you are a cheat, a vulture in the guise of woman!” cried Mrs. Whitney.  “Ellen, tell her what she is!”

Mrs. Ranger, her eyes down and her face expressing her agonized embarrassment, contrived to say:  “You mustn’t bring me in, Mattie.  Adelaide and I must go.”

“No, you shall hear!” shrieked Mrs. Whitney, barring the way.  “All the world shall hear how this treacherous, ingrate daughter of mine—­oh, the sting of that!—­how she purposes to steal, yes, steal four times as much of her father’s estate as Ross or I get.  Four times as much!  I can’t believe the law allows it!  But whether it does or not, Janet Whitney, God won’t allow it!  God will hear my cry, my curse on you.”

“My conscience is clear,” said Janet, and her gaze, spiritual, exalted, patient, showed that she spoke the truth, that her mother’s looks and words left her quite unscathed.

Ross vented a vicious, jeering laugh.  His mother, overcome with the sense of helplessness, collapsed from rage to grief and tears.  She turned to Mrs. Ranger.  “Your Hiram was right,” she wailed, “and my Charles said so just before he went.  Look at my daughter, Ellen.  Look at my son—­for he, too, is robbing me.  He has his own fortune that his dead father made for him; yet he, too, talks about his legal rights.  He demands his full third!”

Adelaide did not look at Ross; yet she was seeing him inside and out, the inside through the outside.

“My heartless children!” sobbed Matilda.  “I can’t believe that they are the same I brought into the world and watched over and saw that they had everything.  God forgive them—­and me.  Your Hiram was right.  Money has done it.  Money has made monsters of them.  And I—­oh, how I am punished!”