CHAPTER X.
HOW YOUNG TOM FOUND HIS MATCH The news spread quickly.
Tom Hamon heard it as he sat brooding over his wrongs and cursing the chicken-heartedness and fear of consequences which had robbed him of his revenge.
He started up with an incredulous curse and tore across the Coupee to the mines to make sure.
But there was no doubt about it.

Old Tom was dead: the six weeks were still two days short of their fulfilment; the property was his; his day had come.
He walked straight to La Closerie, and stalked grimly into the kitchen, where, as it happened, they were sitting over a doleful and long-delayed meal.
Mrs.Hamon had been too overwhelmed by the unexpected blow to consider all its bearings.

Grannie, looking beyond, had foreseen consequences and trouble with Tom, and had sent for Stephen Gard and given him some elementary instruction relative to the laws of succession in Sark.
Tom stalked in upon them with malevolent triumph.

They had tried their best to oust him from his inheritance and the act of God had spoiled them.

He felt almost virtuous.
But his natural truculence, and his not altogether unnatural exultation at the frustration of these plans for his own upsetting, overcame all else.