CHAPTER TWENTY

When Fledra entered the breakfast room it was evident to both Ann and Horace that she had had no sleep.  Dark rings had settled under her eyes.  The girl had decided that Lon would make good his threat against the person who should try to keep his children from him, and, if she went to school, Lem and her father might come when she was gone.  As they rose from the table, she said sullenly: 

“I’m not goin’ to school any more.  I don’t like that place.  I want to stay at home.”

“Are you ill, Dear?” asked Ann, coming forward.

“No, I’m not sick; but I can’t go to school.”

Horace’s brow darkened.

“That’s hardly the way to speak to my sister, Fledra,” he chided gently.

Ann glanced at him in appeal.  Fledra was standing before them, and her eyes dropped under his words.

“If I asked you to let me stay home,” she said in a low tone, “you’d both say I couldn’t; so I just had to say that I won’t go.”

Fledra knew no other way to stand guard over the houseful of loved ones.  If Lon were to come while she was gone, he might take her brother.  If she told Horace that thieves had entered his home, and if she named them, that would draw fatal consequences down on Floyd.  She could only hold her peace and let matters take their course.  At any rate, she did not intend to go to school.  Now she cast a quick glance at Ann; but kept her eyes studiously from Horace.  Noting Miss Shellington’s entreating face, Fledra flung out her hands.

“I didn’t want to be mean,” she said quickly; “but I want you to let me stay home today.  Can I?  Please, can I?”

“There!  I knew that you’d apologize to my sister,” Horace said, smiling.

At this, Fledra turned upon him.  He had never felt a pair of eyes affect him as did hers.  How winsomely sweet she was!  It came over him in a flash that he had not dealt quite justly with her; so he smiled again and held out his hands.

* * * * *

During the morning Fledra crept ghostlike about the house.  She strained her eyes, now at one window and then at another, for the first glimpse of Lon.  The luncheon hour came and passed, and still the thieves gave no sign of coming.  Horace had returned from his office early in the afternoon, and was smoking a cigar in the library, when suddenly a loud peal of the doorbell roused him.  Fledra, too, heard it distinctly.  She was sitting beside Floyd; but had not dared to breathe their danger to him.  Her cheeks paled at the sound, and she rested silent until presently summoned to the drawing-room.

“What’s the matter?” asked her brother.

“Nothin’, Fluke, lay down, and if ye hear anyone talkin’ keep still.  Somebody’s coming.”

“Somebody comes every day,” answered Floyd.  “That ain’t nothin’.  What ye doin’, Flea?”