bowed formally. Major Churchill stood for a moment looking straight
before him with a somewhat glassy stare, then, "Good-night, Mr. Rand,"
he said, in a voice like a wind through November reeds, made a bow as
low and as studied as that with which he had once honoured Rand in the
Fontenoy drawing-room, turned with martial precision, and stalked from
the room.

Lewis Rand stood long upon the hearth, staring down into the fire. He
heard Major Edward's horse go down the drive and out upon the highroad
with a swiftness that spoke of a rider in a passion. The sound of hoofs
died away, and he still stood looking into the red hollows, but at last
with a short and angry laugh he turned away and opened the door which
led to the dining-room. "Are you still there, Tom? Come in, man! The
accusing angel has gone."

Tom appeared, and the two went back to the great table in the centre of
the room. Rand unlocked the drawer and took out the papers in the
perusal of which they had been interrupted. Mocket snuffed the candles
and tossed another log of hickory upon the fire. "It falls in with what
Gaudylock suspected," said Rand's measured voice behind him, "and it all
dates back to the nineteenth of February. When he left the house that
night, he must have known--"

"Of whom are you talking?" asked Tom at the fire. "Major Edward?"

"No, not Major Edward. And now he is using his knowledge. She told me
to-day that he was often at Fontenoy. Too often, too often, Ludwell
Cary!"

"Now, after stopping my mouth, you have spoken his name yourself!"
remarked Tom. "You and he are over against each other in that case
to-morrow, aren't you?"

"In every case we are over against each other," said the other abruptly.
"And we shall be so until Judgment Day. Come, man, come! we have all
these to go through with before cockcrow."

CHAPTER XXIII

A CHALLENGE

The Charlottesville Robbery Case was one of no great importance save to
those directly concerned. It had to do with a forged note, a robbery by
night, and an absconding trusted clerk of a company of British
Merchants. When the case came up for trial on this October day, the
Court House was well filled indeed, but rather on account of the lawyers
engaged than because of the matter's intrinsic interest. The British
Merchants had retained Mr. Ludwell Cary. The side of the prisoner,
mentioning that fact in a pitiful scrawl addressed to the law office of
Messrs. Rand and Mocket, found to