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“Indeed, and you’ll do no such thing!” cried Cynthia. “Thyra Carewe is best left alone, if she is in a tantrum. She’s like no other woman in Avonlea–or out of it. I’d as soon meddle with a tiger as her, if she’s rampaging about Chester. I don’t envy Damaris Garland her life if she goes in there. Thyra’d sooner strangle her than not, I guess.”

“You women are all terrible hard on Thyra,” said Carl, good-naturedly. He had been in love with Thyra, himself, long ago, and he still liked her in a friendly fashion. He always stood up for her when the Avonlea women ran her down. He felt troubled about her all night, recalling her as she paced the bridge. He wished he had gone back, in spite of Cynthia.

When Chester came home he met his mother on the bridge. In the faint, yet penetrating, moonlight they looked curiously alike, but Chester had the milder face. He was very handsome. Even in the seething of her pain and jealousy Thyra yearned over his beauty. She would have liked to put up her hands and caress his face, but her voice was very hard when she asked him where he had been so late.

“I called in at Tom Blair’s on my way home from the harbor,” he answered, trying to walk on. But she held him back by his arm.

“Did you go there to see Damaris?” she demanded fiercely.

Chester was uncomfortable. Much as he loved his mother, he felt, and always had felt, an awe of her and an impatient dislike of her dramatic ways of speaking and acting. He reflected, resentfully, that no other young man in Avonlea, who had been paying a friendly call, would be met by his mother at midnight and held up in such tragic fashion to account for himself. He tried vainly to loosen her hold upon his arm, but he understood quite well that he must give her an answer. Being strictly straight-forward by nature and upbringing, he told the truth, albeit with more anger in his tone than he had ever shown to his mother before.

“Yes,” he said shortly.

Thyra released his arm, and struck her hands together with a sharp cry. There was a savage note in it. She could have slain Damaris Garland at that moment.

“Don’t go on so, mother,” said Chester, impatiently. “Come in out of the cold. It isn’t fit for you to be here. Who has been tampering with you? What if I did go to see Damaris?”

“Oh–oh–oh!” cried Thyra. “I was waiting for you–alone–and you were thinking only of her! Chester, answer me–do you love her?”

The blood rolled rapidly over the boy’s face. He muttered something and tried to pass on, but she caught him again. He forced himself to speak gently.

“What if I do, mother?” It wouldn’t be such a dreadful thing, would it?”

“And me? And me?” cried Thyra. “What am I to you, then?”

“You are my mother. I wouldn’t love you any the less because I cared for another, too.”

“I won’t have you love another,” she cried. “I want all your love–all! What’s that baby-face to you, compared to your mother? I have the best right to you. I won’t give you up.”

Chester realized that there was no arguing with such a mood. He walked on, resolved to set the matter aside until she might be more reasonable. But Thyra would not have it so. She followed on after him, under the alders that crowded over the lane.

“Promise me that you’ll not go there again,” she entreated. “Promise me that you’ll give her up.”

“I can’t promise such a thing,” he cried angrily.

His anger hurt her worse than a blow, but she did not flinch.