he needn't have stuck the tail of it on," he remarked carelessly;
"but the first part has a bully sound."

When Cynthia had gone, he undressed and threw himself on the bed,
but there was a queer stinging sensation in his veins, and he
could not sleep. Rising presently, he opened the window, and in
the frosty October air stood looking through the darkness to the
light that twinkled in the direction of Blake Hall. Faint stars
were shining overhead, and against the indistinct horizon
something obscure and black was dimly outlined--perhaps the great
clump of oaks that surrounded the old brick walls. Somewhere by
that glimmer of light he knew that Fletcher sat hugging his
ambition like a miser, gloating over the grandson who would grow
up to redeem his name. For the weak, foolish-mouthed boy
Christopher at this moment knew neither tolerance nor compassion;
and if he stooped to touch him, he felt that it was merely as he
would grasp a stick which Fletcher had taken for his own defense.
The boy himself might live or die, prosper or fail, it made
little difference. The main thing was that in the end Bill
Fletcher should be hated by his grandson as he was hated by the
man whom he had wronged.



CHAPTER IX. As the Twig is Bent

It was two weeks after this that Fletcher, looking up from his
coffee and cakes one morning, demanded querulously "Whar's Will,
Saidie? It seems to me he sleeps late these days."