e with his hand.

"Floyd, dear Floyd, I'm not blaming you. I realize that if it had been
possible you would have given me back my babies, and you must not say
that your efforts have been of no avail. Why, dear husband, the papers
are full of your great, strong doings. I'm immensely proud of you." She
had leaned over him; but the despondent man did not take the hand from
his eyes.

"Of all the strange cases, Fledra, ours is the strangest. You remember
how I turned the state almost upside down to find those children. Yet,
with all the power I could bring to bear, I made no headway."

"I did not realize that you felt it so deeply," whispered the wife.
"I've been so selfish--forgive me! We'll try to be as happy as possible,
and we have Mildred--"

"If we had a dozen children," replied the governor sadly, "our first
babies would always have their places in our hearts."

"True," murmured the mother. "How true that is, Floyd! There is never a
day but I feel the touch of their fingers, remember their sweet baby
ways. And always, when I look at you, I think of them. They were so like
their father."

Lon Cronk and Lem Crabbe had arranged between them that the scowman
should return to Ithaca for some days, and so the big thief was alone
near the Hudson, in a shanty that had been given over to him by a canal
friend to use when he wished. When Lon decided to rob Horace
Shellington, he had known that there would have to be some place to take
the things thus obtained, and had secured the hut for the purpose. It
was at this address that Everett came to him, upon his return from New
York.

Lon admitted the lawyer, who found the hut reeking with the rank smoke
from a short pipe that Cronk held in his hand.

"Have ye got the kids?" the squatter questioned.

Everett catechized the heavy face with a smile.

"Did you think for a moment it was possible to obtain them so quickly?"

"I hain't had no way of knowin'," grunted Lon, "and I'm in a hurry."

He seemed changed, and looked as if he had not slept. Everett wondered
if his affection for the children had been so great that his loss of
them had altered him thus. The lawyer did not know how Lon was tortured
when he caressed the image of the dead woman, nor could he know the
man's agony when her spirit left him suddenly.

"You'll have to curb your haste," said Brimbecomb, with a curl of his
lip. "It takes time to set justice in motion."

"Have ye done anything?"

"Not yet. I