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Updated: June 13, 2025
If Horace had been determined in the first instant that the squatter should not get possession of the twins, he was now many times more resolute to keep to his decision. For his life, he could not imagine Lon Cronk the father of his young charges. He returned to the drawing-room, and found Ann and Fledra still together, the girl's face hidden in Miss Shellington's lap.
Miss Shellington's mind recalled her girlhood days, in which Katherine had been an intimate part. She could not bear it. She took an impulsive forward step; but Vandecar gripped her. "Stay," came sternly from his lips, "stay! But but God pity her!" The next seconds were laden with biting agony such as neither the governor nor Ann had ever experienced.
"They runned away from hum, and I ain't seed 'em till I found out that they was at Shellington's." "And how did you discover them?" "Saw Flea goin' up the steps," lied Cronk. "I knowed her the minute I see her, in spite of her pretty clothes." "Then you applied to Mr. Shellington for them?" "Yep." "And he refused to deliver them up?" "Yep damn him! But I'll take 'em, anyway."
His voice was so low that Horace did not catch the words; but Scraggy heard, and crawled from Lem to Miss Shellington's side. "Missus, will ye tell my little boy-brat that his mammy be here? Will ye say as how I loved him him and Lemmy, allers?" Her haggard face was close to Ann's, and the latter took in every word of the low-spoken petition. Miss Shellington bent over the dying man.
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.
In spite of Miss Shellington's tender pleading, in spite of the fact that Flukey believed stanchly all that Ann had told them, Flea suffered in her disbelief. Many times she sought consolation in Flukey's faith. "Ye see, Flea, can't ye," he said, one morning, "that when Sister Ann says a thing it's so? Can't ye see it, Flea?" "Nope, I can't. I don't know how God looks.
The sharpness of Shellington's voice told Middy that this news was of moment. "Well, ye see, 'tain't none of my business, 'cause the gal belongs to Lon; but, if she was mine, I wouldn't give her to no Lem Crabbe. Lem said she jumped in the lake after a pup; but I 'low he was monkeyin' with her. Her pappy hopped in the water after her like a frog and pulled her out quicker'n scat."
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