“Am I likely, then, to 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 this, it appeared, and on the morning of your uncle’s death Abner was seen crossing the pasture from Poplar Spring with his gun on his shoulder.”

“It’s an ugly story all round,” remarked Gay quietly, “and I wish to heaven that I were out of it.  How has my poor mother stood it?”