“Is there anything I can do for you, Everett?”

“Well, yes, there is,” admitted Brimbecomb.

“I’ll do anything I can,” replied Horace heartily.

Brimbecomb hesitated before going on.  Shellington looked so grave, so dignified, so much more manly than he had ever seen him, that he scarcely dared open his subject.

“It’s something that may touch you at first, Horace,” he explained; “but—­”

Horace, unsuspicious, bent forward encouragingly: 

“Go ahead,” he said.

Everett flushed and looked at the floor.

“A case has just come into our office, and, as my father is gone from home, I have taken it on.”

Horace listened expectantly.  Everett could have struck the man in the face, he hated him so deeply.  He groaned mentally as he thought of Scraggy and her wild-eyed cat and of his endeavor to close her lips as to her relation to him.  It was a great fear within him that soon his father would appear as his mother had.  The time might come when this haughty man before him would have reason to look upon him with contempt.  To make Horace understand his present power was the one thought that now dominated him.

With this in mind, he began to speak again: 

“A man came to us with a complaint that you were keeping his children from him.”

If Horace had received the blow the other longed to give, he could not have been more shocked.

“I believe his name is Cronk,” went on Everett, taking a slip from his pocket; “yes, Lon Cronk.”

Horace took his paper-knife from the table and twirled it in his fingers.  His face had grown ashen white, his lips were set closely over his teeth.

“I have met this Cronk,” he said in a low tone.

“So I understand.  He told me that he had been at your home, and had demanded his children, and that you had refused to give them up.”

“I did!” There was no lack of emphasis in the words.

“And you said that he could not have them unless he went to law for them.”

“I did!” said Horace again.

“And he came to me.”

Horace rose to his feet, a deep frown gathering on his brow.  Everett rose also, and the two men faced each other for a long moment.

“And you took the case?” Horace got out at last.

“Yes, I took the case,” Everett replied.

“And yet you knew that Ann loved them?”

“I was—­was sure that if you both understood—­”

The speaker’s hesitation brought forth an ejaculation from Shellington.

“What are we to understand?”

“That justice must be done the father,” responded Everett quickly.

Horace squared his jaw and snapped out: 

“Do I understand that, in spite of the near relationship of our family, you are willing to deal a blow to my sister and me that, if it falls, will be almost unbearable?  You intend to fight with this squatter for his children?”