“I know all you say, and I’m much obliged to you; but I can’t accept it.  It’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth with me.  He has entered my home and struck me in the dark.  Do you think I done all I have done jest for the money I was makin’!  No; I wanted revenge.  I have set on my porch of a night and seen her wanderin’ about in them fureign cities, all alone, trampin’ the streets—­trampin’, trampin’, trampin’; tired, and, maybe, sick and hungry, not able to ask them outlandish folks for even a piece of bread—­her that used to set on my knee and hug me with her little arms and call me granddad, and claim all the little calves for hers—­jest the little ones; and that I’ve ridden many a mile over the mountains for, thinkin’ how she was goin’ to run out to meet me when I got home.  And now even my old dog’s dead—­died after she went away.

“No!” he broke out fiercely.  “If he comes back here, it’s him or me!  By the Lord! if he comes back here, I’ll pay him the debt I owe him.  If she’s his wife, I’ll make her a widow, and if she ain’t, I’ll revenge her.”

He mopped the beads of sweat that had broken out on his brow, and without a word stalked out of the door.

But Ferdy Wickersham had no idea of returning to New Leeds.  He found New York quite interesting enough for him about this time.

The breach between Norman and his wife had grown of late.

Gossip divided the honors between them, and some said it was on Ferdy Wickersham’s account; others declared that it was Mrs. Lancaster who had come between them.  Yet others said it was a matter of money—­that Norman had become tired of his wife’s extravagance and had refused to stand it any longer.

Keith knew vaguely of the trouble between Norman and his wife; but he did not know the extent of it, and he studiously kept up his friendly relations with her as well as with Norman.  His business took him to New York from time to time, and he was sensible that the life there was growing more and more attractive for him.  He was fitting into it too, and enjoying it more and more.  He was like a strong swimmer who, used to battling in heavy waves, grows stronger with the struggle, and finds ever new enjoyment and courage in his endeavor.  He felt that he was now quite a man of the world.  He was aware that his point of view had changed and (a little) that he had changed.  As flattering as was his growth in New Leeds, he had a much more infallible evidence of his success in the favor with which he was being received in New York.

The favor that Mrs. Lancaster had shown Keith, and, much more, old Mrs. Wentworth’s friendship, had a marked effect throughout their whole circle of acquaintance.  That a man had been invited to these houses meant that he must be something.  There were women who owned large houses, wore priceless jewels, cruised in their own yachts, had their own villas on ground as valuable as that which fronted the Roman Forum in old days, who would almost have