ly through the Roselands gates
and up the dark drive to the stone steps and open door. Jacqueline met
him on the threshold. She was trembling, but not weeping; there was even
a wistful fire and passion in her dark eyes and a rose-leaf colour in
her cheeks. "Did you meet him?" she said. "Did he tell you? I am all
ready. He says that Aunt Nancy thinks that it is years ago, and that I'm
Jacqueline Churchill still. I thought you would never, never come"--She
turned and threw herself into his arms. "Oh, Lewis, we are going to
Fontenoy!"

CHAPTER XX

THE NINETEENTH OF FEBRUARY

"That's true," quoth Gaudylock. "It's the cracked I pitcher that goes
oftenest to the well, and a delicate lady that's lain a-dying on her bed
this twenty year may live to see you and me and the blacksmith buried!
There never was a Churchill that I didn't like, and I'm certainly glad
she's better this morning. If you're going to Greenwood, I'll bear you
company for a bit. I'm bound for Roselands myself."

Ludwell Cary dismounted and, with his bridle across his arm, walked
beside the hunter. "Albemarle has not seen you for a long while," he
said pleasantly. "The county is fond of you, and glad to have you home
again."

"So a lady told me the other day!" answered Adam. "It has been a year
since I was in Albemarle,--but I saw you, sir, last winter in Richmond."

"Last winter? I don't recall--"

"At Lynch's Coffee House. The twentieth of February. The day the
Albemarle Resolutions were passed."

"Ah!" breathed Cary. The two walked on, now in sun, now in shade, upon
the quiet road. The drouth was broken. There had been a torrential rain,
then two days of sunshine. A cool wind now stirred the treetops; the
mountains drew closer in the crystal air, and the washed fields renewed
their green. So bright and sunny was the morning that the late summer
wore the air of spring. Cary stood still beside a log, huge and mossy,
that lay beside the road. "Let us rest here a moment," he said, and,
taking his seat, began to draw in the dust before him with the butt of
his whip. "I do not remember seeing you that day. I did not know that
you were in Richmond."

"I was there," answered Adam cheerfully, "on business." He took an acorn
from the ground and balanced it upon a brown forefinger. "It's a
handsome place--Lynch's--and, my faith, one sees the best of company! I
was there with Lewis Rand."

"Ah!"

The sound was sharp, and long like an indrawn brea