blood as the wine is in the grape--to stay unless you shall
water it to extinction with many base inbreedings. Nor was the spur
lacking. When the sweeping extent of the business _coup de grace_ was
measured, Woodlawn was left, and there were a few thousands in bank;
these and the three hundred and fifty shares of the reorganization stock
which the Farleys might render worthless at will.

Tom's heart burned within him, and the race thirst--for vengeance that
could be touched and seen and handled--parched his lips and swelled the
veins in his forehead. Vincent Farley had it all: the business, the good
repute, the love of the one woman. At such crises the wild beast in a
man, if any there be, rattles the bars of its cage, and--well, you will
see that the gnashing of teeth and that fierce talk of heart-cutting at
the quickening moment were not inartistic.

Soberer second thought, less frenzied, was no less vengeful and
vindictive. Tom had lived four formative years in a climate where the
passions are colder--and more comprehensive. Also, he was of his own
generation--which slays its enemy peacefully and without messing in
bloody-angle details.

Riding up the pike one sun-shot afternoon in the golden September, Tom
saw Ardea entering the open door of the Morwenstow church-copy, drew
rein, flung himself out of the saddle and followed her. She saw him and
stopped in the vestibule, quaking a little as she felt she must always
quake until the impassable chasm of wedlock with another should be
safely opened between them.

"Just a moment," he said abruptly. "There was a time when I said I
would spare Vincent Farley and his kin for your sake. Do you remember
it?"

She bowed her head without speaking. Her lips were dry.

"That was a year ago," he went on roughly. "Things have changed since
then; I have changed. When my father is buried, I shall do my best to
fill the mourners' carriages with those who have killed him."

"How is your father to-day?" she asked, not daring to trust speech
otherwise.

"He is the same as he was yesterday and the day before; the same as he
will always be from this on--a broken man."

"You will strike back?" She said it with infinite sadness in her voice
and an upcasting of eyes that were swimming. "I don't question your
right--but I pity you. The blow may be just--I don't know, but God
knows--yet it will fall hardest on you in the end, Tom."

His smile was almost boyish in its frank anger. Bu