t there was a man's
sneer in his words.

"Excuse me; I forgot for the moment that we are in a church. But I am
taking consequences, these days."

She looked out from the cool, dark refuge of the vestibule when he
mounted and rode on, and her heart was full. It was madness, vindictive
madness and fell anger. But it was a generous wrath, large and manlike.
It was not to be a blow in the dark or in the back, as some men struck;
and he would not strike without first giving her warning. Ardea had been
cross-questioning Japheth about the assault at the Woodlawn gates--to
her own hurt. Japheth had evaded as he could, but she had guessed what
he was keeping back--the identity of the two footpads blackened to look
like negroes. It was a weary world, and life had lost much that had made
it worth living.

After the incident of the church vestibule, Tom spent a week or more
roaming the forests of Lebanon in rough shooting clothes, with the
canvas hat pulled well over his eyes and a fowling-piece under his arm.

People said harsher things then. With old Caleb failing visibly from day
to day, and his mother keeping her room for the greater part of the
time, it was a shame that a great strong young giant like Tom should go
loitering about on the mountain, deliberately shirking his duty. This
was the elder Miss Harrison's wording of the censure; and it was kinder
than Mrs. Henniker's, since it was the banker's wife who first asked,
with uplifted brows and the accent accusative, if the unspeakable
Bryerson woman were safely beyond tramping distance from Woodlawn.

They were both mistaken. For all Tom thought of her, Nancy Bryerson was
as safe in her retreat at Pine Knob as were the squirrels he was
supposed to be hunting; and they came and frisked unharmed on the
branches of the tree under which he sat and munched his bit of bread and
meat when the sun was at the meridian.

And he was not killing time. He was deep in an inventive trance, with
vengeance for the prize to be won, and for the means to the end,
iron-works and pipe plants and forgings--especially the forging of one
particular thunderbolt which should shatter the Farley fortunes beyond
repair. When this bolt was finally hammered into shape he came out of
the wood and out of the inventive trance, had an hour's interview with
Major Dabney, and took a train for New York.

I am not sure, but I think it was at Bristol, Tennessee, that the
telegram from Norman, begging him t