hing
order?"

The other considered. "Do you believe that he is going West to join
Burr?"

"I do. And yet this week he is defending a case in court, and there are
others coming on. He is busy, too, at Roselands, and he has taken the
Richmond house. I am, perhaps, a suspicious, envious, and vindictive
fool."

"Roselands and the Richmond house might be a mask, He refused the
nomination for Governor."

Ludwell Cary started violently. "I had forgotten that! You have it,
Fair. He would do that--he would refuse the nomination. Lewis Rand,
Lewis Rand!"

"Have you any proof that he is conspiring with Burr?"

"None that I could advance--none. I have an inward certainty, that is
all. Nor can I--nor can I, Fair, even speak of such a suspicion. You see
that?"

"Yes, I see that."

"I repented last winter of having written that letter signed 'Aurelius.'
I _knew_ nothing, and it seemed beneath me to have made that guesswork
public. That he was my enemy should have made me careful, but I was
under strong feeling, and I wrote. He has neither forgotten nor
forgiven. Denounce him now as a conspirator against his party and his
country? That is impossible. Impossible from lack of proof, and
impossible to me were proofs as thick as blackberries! But if I can help
it, he shall not leave Virginia."

"Is it your opinion that he would take her with him?"

"Yes, it is."

"Would she go?"

Cary rose, moved to the window, and stood there a moment in silence.
When, presently, he came back to the table, his face was pale, but
lifted, controlled, and quiet. There was a saying in the county,--"The
high look of the Carys." He wore it now, the high look of the Carys.
"Yes, Fair, she would go with him."

There was a silence, then the younger spoke. "She is at Fontenoy. Mrs.
Churchill may linger long, and her niece is always with her. Rand could
not take his wife away."

"It's a check to his plans, no doubt," said the other wearily.

"He's frowning over it now. He'll wait as long as may be. He would sin,
but he would not sin meanly. In his conception of himself a greatness,
even in transgression, must clothe all that he does. He'll wait, gravely
and decently, even though to wait is his heavy risk." He made a gesture
with his hand. "Do I not know him, know him well? Sometimes I think that
for three years I've had no other study!"

"You should have let me challenge him that first election day," said
Fairfax Cary gloomily. "If we had met