e lived so long ago!'"

Amid the laugh that followed, Cary turned a smiling face upon the
speaker. "_I_ will answer, Mr. Wickham, for Aurelius. Do you really want
to challenge me?" He slightly changed his position so as to confront
Rand's table. "In this instance, Mr. Rand, I am certain there was no
fear."

His speech, heard of all, wrought in various ways. Mocket the day before
had not exaggerated the general interest in the letter signed
"Aurelius." Now at Lynch's there arose a small tumult of surprise,
acclaim, enthusiasm, and dissent. His friends broke into triumph, his
political enemies--he had few others--strove for a deeper frown and a
growling note. The only indifferent in Lynch's was Adam Gaudylock, who
smoked tranquilly on, not having read the letter in question nor being
concerned with Roman history. Lewis Rand sat in silence with compressed
lips, bodily there in the lit coffee room, but the inner man far away on
the mind's dark plains, struggling with the fiend that dogged him.
Fairfax Cary's cheek glowed and his eyes shone. He looked at his
brother, then poured a glass of wine and raised it to his lips. "Wait,
Fairfax! We'll all drink with you!" cried a neighbour. "Gentlemen and
Federalists, glasses!--Ludwell Cary, and may he live to hear his
children's children read 'Aurelius'!"

The Federalists drank the toast with acclaim, while the Republicans with
equal ostentation did no such thing. Mr. Pincornet in his corner,
hearing the words "Gentlemen" and "Cary," drank with gusto his very thin
wine, and Adam drank because he had always liked the Carys and certainly
had no grudge against "Aurelius," whoever he might be.

In the first lull of sound the man at the table with Lewis Rand spoke in
a loud, harsh, but agreeable voice. "Well, Mr. Cary, the staunchest of
Republicans, though he can't drink that toast, need not deny praise to a
masterpiece of words. Words, sir, not facts. What I want to know is at
whom--not at what, at _whom_--you were firing? I thought once that Aaron
Burr was your mark. But he's too light metal--a mere buccaneer! That
broadside of yours would predicate a general foe--and I'm damned if I
wouldn't like to know his name!"

"We would all like to know his name," said Rand. "And when we know it, I
for one would like to hear Mr. Cary's proofs of faithlessness to
obligations."

In the hush of expectation which fell upon the room the eyes of the two
men met. In Rand's there was something co