e letter which you wrote and signed 'Aurelius'!"

"A letter that told the truth, Mr. Rand."

"That is as may be. Telling the truth is at times an occupation full of
danger."

"Is it?"

"The nineteenth of February--ah, I have you there! Was it not--was it
not a pleasant employment for a snowy night to sit by the fire and learn
news of an enemy--news the more piquant for the lips that gave it!"

"You are speaking, sir, both madly and falsely!"

They pressed their horses more closely together. Cary was pale with
anger, but upon Rand's face was a curious darkness. Men had seen Gideon
look so, and in old Stephen Rand the peculiarity had been marked. When
he spoke, it was in a voice that matched his aspect. "Last October in
the Charlottesville court room--even that insult was not insult merely,
but a trap as well! It is to be acknowledged that yours was the master
mind. I walked into your trap."

"That which I did is not to be called a trap. Your ambition enmeshed you
then, as your passion blinds you now."

Rand's voice darkened and fell. "Who gave you--who gave you the right of
inquisition? What has your soul or your way of thinking to do with mine?
You are not my keeper. I would not take salvation at your hands--by God,
no! Why should the thought of you lie at the bottom of each day? It
shall not lie at the bottom of this one! I do not know where first we
met, but now we'll part. You have laid your finger here and you have
laid it there, now take your hand away!"

"Do you well, and I will," said Cary sternly.

The other drew a labouring breath. "Two weeks ago I was in
Williamsburgh, in the Apollo, listening in the heat to idle talk--and
you in Richmond, you came at her call! You came down the quiet street,
and in between the box bushes, and up the steps under the honeysuckle.
What did you say to her there in the dusk, by the window? You were a
Cary--you were part and parcel of the loved past--you had all the
shibboleths--you could comfort, commiserate, and counsel! Ha! I wish I
might have heard. 'Aurelius' dealing with the forsworn and the absent!
'Here the blot, and there the stain, and yon a rent that's hard to mend.
If there's salvation, I see it not at present.' So you resolved all
her doubts, and laid within her hand every link of a long chain. You
have my thanks."

[Illustration: CARY SAW AND FLUNG OUT HIS ARM, SWERVING HIS HORSE, BUT
TOO LATE]

"I will not," said Cary, after a silence,--"I will not be