have trouble with the Revercombs?" he asked, with
a disturbing memory of Blossom's flaxen head under the hooded shawl.

"It's not improbable that the family will take up the matter. These
country folk are fearful partisans, you see. However, it may lead
to nothing worse than the miller's refusing to grind your corn or
forbidding you to use the bridle path over his pasture."

"Had my uncle any friction in that quarter when he lived here?"

Mr. Chamberlayne's cigar had gone out while he talked, and striking a
match on a silver box, he watched the thin blue flame abstractedly an
instant before he answered.

"Were you ever told," he inquired, "that there was some talk of
arresting Abner Revercomb before the coroner's jury agreed on a
verdict?"

"Abner? He's the eldest of the brothers, isn't he? No, I hadn't heard of
it."

"It was only the man's reputation for uprightness, I believe, that
prevented the arrest. The Revercombs are a remarkable family for their
station in life, and they derive their ability entirely from their
mother, who was one of the Hawtreys. They belong to the new order--to
the order that is rapidly forging to the surface and pushing us
dilapidated aristocrats out of the way. These people have learned a
lot in the last few years, and they are learning most of all that the
accumulation of wealth is the real secret of dominance. When they get
control of the money, they'll begin to strive after culture, and acquire
a smattering of education instead. It's astonishing, perhaps, but the
fact remains that a reputable, hard-working farmer like our friend the
miller, with his primitive little last century grist-mill, has probably
greater influence in the State to-day than you have, for all your two
thousand acres. He has intelligence enough to go to the Legislature and
make a fair showing, if he wants to, and I don't' believe that either of
us could stand in the race a minute against him."

"Well, he's welcome to the doubtful honour! But the thing that puzzles
me is why in thunder his brother Abner should have wanted to shoot my
uncle?"

"It seems--" the lawyer hesitated, coughed and glanced nervously at
the door as if he feared the intrusion of Kesiah--"it seems he was a
lover--was engaged in fact to Janet Merryweather before--before she
attracted your uncle's attention. Later the engagement was broken, and
he married a cousin in a fit of temper, it was said at the time. There
was always ill blood after