In after days Ann could always conjure up the picture before her.  Fledra looked so infinitely young and melancholy, as her eyes fixed themselves in wide terror upon Cronk.  Out of the ragged blouse rose the proud, dark head, and the lovely face was almost overshadowed by two tightly clenched fists.  Instead of falling into her arms, as Ann had imagined she would, the girl only sank lower to the floor, her face ghastly in a new horror.  Miss Shellington’s patience gave way as she stared at Vandecar—­his delay was imperiling Fledra’s life; for, if ever a wicked face expressed hate and murder, the squatter’s did now.  She turned appealing eyes to Katherine, and took a step forward; but the latter held her and whispered: 

“Wait, wait a moment, Ann!  Wait until Uncle has spoken!”

The whisper broke the silence, and Fledra turned her eyes from Lon.  She wondered dazedly who the stranger was, and why he had come with Ann.  She thought of Horace, and a pain shot through her heart.  She was aware that his sister had come for her; but no thought entered her mind to give up the yoke that would soon be too heavy to bear.  Then Governor Vandecar began to speak, and Fledra looked at him.

“I have come to take back my own, Lon Cronk,” said he, “that of which you robbed me many years ago.”

“I ain’t nothin’ that belongs to ye, and ye’d better go back where ye comed from, Mister—­and don’t—­come no nearer!”

As the squatter spoke, his lips spread wide over his teeth, and he began picking up and laying down the bits of white wood.  He did it deliberately, and no one present imagined how the sight of Vandecar tore at his heartstrings.  Cronk could tolerate no robbing him of his revenge, no taking away his chance of soothing the haunting spirit of his dead woman.

Again Ann touched the governor’s arm.

“Don’t, Dear!” he said, pushing her back a little.  “Lon Cronk—­I want to tell you—­a story.”

Cronk made no response; only stooped over and gathered a few slender whittlings, and stacked them up among the others.  There was an intense, biting silence, until the governor spoke again.

“Nineteen years ago, when I lived in Syracuse, there came to me an opportunity to convict a man of theft.  Then I was young and happy; I knew nothing of deep misery, or of—­deep love.”  The hesitation on his last words brought a shake from the squatter’s shoulders.  “This man, as I have said, was a thief, admitted his crime to me; but, at the time of his conviction, he pleaded with me that he might go home for a little while to see his wife, who was ill.  But of course I had no authority to do that.”

A dark shade flashed over Cronk’s face, followed by one of awful suffering.

“Yep, ye had,” he repeated parrot-like; “ye might have let him go.”

“But I couldn’t,” proceeded the governor, “and the man was taken away to prison without one glance at the woman who was praying to see him.  For she loved him more—­than he did her.”