he one small atom he would have loved better than himself--would be
well avenged when Flea went away with Lem.

Lon had kept track of the doings of the young district attorney. He knew
that he had gone to the gubernatorial chair but the year before. The
squatter smiled gloomily as he remembered the words of a newspaper
friendly to Vandecar, in which he had read that Syracuse was full of
painful memories for the new governor, and that Floyd Vandecar had taken
his family down the Hudson, to make another home at Tarrytown, where
Harold Brimbecomb, a youthful friend, resided. Another expression of
dark gratification flitted over Lon's heavy features as he reviewed
again the purport of the article. It had plainly said that in the new
home there would be fewer visions of a lost boy and girl to haunt the
afflicted parents. Lon realized in his savage heart that the change of
scene would not lessen the grief of the stricken family. It was his one
satisfaction to brood over the bereaved father and mother, delighting in
his part of the tragedy and enjoying every evidence of it. Never for a
moment did he think gently of the children, but only of the woman
sacrificed. On this night she stood so close that, with a groan, he put
out his hand. His flesh tingled; for he felt that he could almost touch
her, and his heart clamored for the warmth of the tender body he had
never forgotten.

"God!" he moaned between his teeth, "if I could tech her once, jest for
once, I'd let Flea stay to hum!"

"Did ye speak, Lon?" asked Granny Cronk.

"Nope; I were only a thinkin'."

"Have ye changed yer mind 'bout Flea?"

"Nope, Mammy, and ye keep yer mouth shet if ye want me to stay to hum!
See?"

Granny Cronk grunted a reply, and passed into the back room. Five
minutes later the rope cot creaked under her weight.

Wrapped in his somber musings, Lon did not hear Flea approach him until
she was at his elbow. With her coming, the sweet phantom, to which he
grimly held in his moments of solitude, fled back to its unknown grave.
Never had his loved one been so near, so real; never before had she
touched his writhing nature in all its primeval strength. The girl
before him was so like the man who had withstood his agony that he
clenched his fist and rose from his chair. Flea was looking at him in
mute appeal; but before she could speak he had lifted his fist and
brought it down upon the lovely, beseeching face. The blow stunned her;
but only a smoth