She was standing at the door with her ear to the keyhole.  She heard the servant pass her, heard the door open, and Lon’s voice asking for Mr. Shellington.  Then she slid back to Flukey, trembling from head to foot.

“Ye’re sick, Dear,” said the boy.  “Get off this bed, Snatchet!  Lay down here by me, Flea and rest.”

The girl dropped down beside him and closed her eyes with a groan.  Floyd placed his thin hand upon her, and Fledra remained silent, until she was summoned to the drawing-room.

* * * * *

“Who wanted me?” Horace asked the question of the mystified servant.

“I didn’t catch the name, Sir.  I didn’t understand it.  He’s a dreadful-looking man.”

Horace rose, put down his cigar, and walked into the hall.

Lon Cronk was waiting with a shabby cap in his hand.  He bowed awkwardly to Shellington, and essayed to speak; but Horace interrupted: 

“Do you wish to see me?”

“Yep,” answered Lon, glancing sullenly over the young lawyer.  “I’ve come for my brats.”

“Your what?”

“My kids, Flea and Flukey Cronk.”

Horace felt something clutch at his heart.  Fledra’s radiant face rose before his mental vision, and he swallowed hard, as he thought of her relation to the brutal fellow before him.

“Walk in here, please,” he said.

Then he bade the servant call his sister.

Miss Shellington obeyed the summons so quickly that her brother was indicating a chair for the squatter as she walked in.  At sight of the uncouth stranger she glanced about her in dismay.

“Ann,” said Horace, “this is the father—­of—­”

Ann’s expression snapped off his statement.  She knew what he would say without his finishing.  She remembered the stories of terrible beatings, and the story of Fledra’s fear of a wicked man who wanted her for his woman.  The boy’s words came back to her plainly.  “And he weren’t goin’ to marry her nuther, Mister, and that’s the truth.”  Nevertheless, she stepped forward, throwing a look from her brother to the squatter.

“But he can’t have them—­of course, he can’t have them!”

Lon had come with a determination to take the twins peaceably if he could; he would fight if he had to.  He had purposely applied to Shellington in his home, fearing that he might meet Governor Vandecar in Horace’s office.  As long as everyone thought the children his, he could hold to the point that they had to go back with him.  He would make no compromise for money with the protectors of his children; for he had rather have their bodies to torment than be the richest man in the state.  He had not yet avenged that woman dead and gone so many years back.  At thought of her, he rose to his feet and smiled at Ann with twitching lips.

“Ye said, Ma’m, that I couldn’t have my brats.  I say that I will have ‘em.  I’m goin’ to take ’em today.  Do ye hear?”