"It's Tuesday, and near suppertime," said Mrs. Tracy contemptuously. "I trust you've enjoyed your sleep." She gathered up the basket of pods and the bowl of shelled peas, and walked into the kitchen. Vance stood gazing after her with a mind emptied of all willpower. It seemed incredible that three nights should have passed since he and Upton had set out so lightheartedly for the ball game. He had always hated the idea of drunken bouts—had never been in one like this since his freshman year. His self-disgust seemed to cling to every part of him, like a bad taste in the mouth or a smell of stale tobacco in the clothes. He didn't know what had become of the Vance of the mountain pool and of the library at the Willows… .

The Willows! The name suddenly recalled Mrs. Tracy's menacing allusion. What had she meant by saying that he had taken old Mr. Lorburn's books? She must have lost her head, worrying over Upton. He had left the books in a mess, the evening before the ball game; he remembered that. He had wanted to go back and straighten them out, and Lorry Spear had dissuaded him; said it was too dark, and it wouldn't do, in that old house, to light a candle. And now it would seem that the absentee owner of the place, who, according to Miss Spear, never came there, had turned up unexpectedly, and found things in disorder. Well, Vance had to own that the fault was his; he would have liked to see Miss Spear, and tell her so, before leaving. But the pale hostility of Mrs. Tracy's face seemed to thrust him out of her door, out of Paul's Landing. He thought to himself that the easiest thing would be to pack up and go at once—he did not want to sit at the table again with that face opposite to him. And Upton, the dirty sneak, would be afraid, he felt sure, to say a word in his defence … to tell his mother that the Hayes gang, and the Cran girls, were old acquaintances… . "No, I'll go now," Vance thought.