Jacqueline was not like other women. He could not remember having seen
Jacqueline cry since she was a child, and the sight troubled him
immensely. She wept as though she were used to weeping. He crossed to
the chair by the window and touched her bowed head with his wrinkled
hand. "What is it, child?" he asked. "Tell Uncle Edward."

But Jacqueline, it appeared, had nothing to tell. After a little she
wiped her eyes, and brokenly laughed at herself; and then, a sound
coming through the window, she started to her feet. "That is Dr. Gilmer!
I hear his horse at the gate. Joab must have met him upon the road!"

"Joab?"

"Mr. Rand's servant."

"You appear," said the Major, "to know a deal more than I do about Mr.
Rand. Where did you learn so much?"

Jacqueline, halfway to the door, turned upon him her candid eyes. "Don't
you remember?" she answered, "the month that I spent, summer before
last, at Cousin Jane Selden's, on the Three-Notched Road? I saw Mr. Rand
very often that summer. Cousin Jane liked him, and he was welcome at her
house. And when I used to stay there as a child I saw him then, and--and
was sorry for him. Don't you remember? I told you at the time."

"No, I don't remember," replied Uncle Edward grimly. "I have other
things to think of than the Rands. There should have been no
association--though I am surprised at nothing which goes on beneath Jane
Selden's roof. Jane Selden has a most erratic mind.--Don't sympathize
too much, Jacqueline, with that damned young Republican upstairs! He's
an enemy." The Major walked to the window. "It is Gilmer, sure enough,
and--ah, it is Ludwell Cary with him, riding Prince Rupert. Come look,
Jacqueline!"

Receiving no answer, he turned to find that his niece had vanished and
he was alone in the library. Presently he heard from the hail, through
the half-open door, the doctor's voice and Ludwell Cary's expressions of
concern, Jacqueline's low replies, a confusion of other voices, and
finally, from the head of the stairs, Colonel Dick's hearty "Come up,
Gilmer, come up! D'ye remember that damned place in the hill road where
my mare Nelly threw me, coming home at dawn from Maria Erskine's
wedding?"

Steps and voices died away. The evening shadows lengthened, and filled
the library where Uncle Edward sat, propping his lean old chin upon his
lean old hand, and staring at a dim old clock in the corner, as if it
could tell him more than the time of day. He heard Mr. Pincorn