y how he
lies, and then we want to take him to Greenwood. He has been here long,
you know."

His words elicited only a low groan, but presently Cary lifted himself
from the body, remained for a moment upon his knees, then rose to his
feet. "Yes, to Greenwood," he said. "He lay here last night in the wind
and rain, and I was warm and happy--I was asleep and dreaming! Why did I
leave him at Elm Tree? If I had been with him--"

His face changed, startlingly. He stooped with rapidity, looked at and
touched the dark stain upon the coat, straightened himself, and turned
violently upon the Major and the little group which had now approached.
"Who?" he demanded in a voice that rose to a hoarse cry. "Who?"

Colonel Churchill answered him. "We don't know, Fair, but by the living
God, we'll find out!" and the sheriff, "We've no clue yet, sir, but if
'twas plain murder--and it looks that way, for your brother wasn't
armed--then I reckon the man who did it will as soon find his ease in
hell as in old Virginia!"

The farmer who had been first upon the ground spoke from the edge of the
group. "I never heard a soul in this county say a hard word of Mr.
Cary. I shouldn't ha' thought, barring politics, that he had an enemy."

"Ha!" said Major Edward, but not loudly.

The sheriff spoke again. "Mr. Fairfax Cary, we've got a kind of litter
here, made of branches, and we'd best be going on. The sooner the law
has its hand on this, the better. Shall we lift him now, sir?"

All were by this time gathered about the form on the earth, and the
throng at the edge of the wood had also come nearer. Fairfax Cary, who
had looked at each speaker in turn, now again bent his eyes upon his
brother. That still figure, so fixed, so uncaring in the midst of harsh
emotion, had apparently no accusation to make, was there only to state
the all-inclusive fact, "I am in death, who, yesterday, could move and
speak, could feel joy and grief, like you and these."

The little knot of men, who had been gazing at the dead as at the chief
actor in a drama, began to look, instead, at Fairfax Cary, and to look
the more steadily for their first glance. They saw a curious thing; they
witnessed a transformation. Had he, like Proteus, slipped before their
eyes into another shape, the vital change had hardly been more marked.
He had been, even this morning, a young man, handsome and gallant, with
a bright eye, a most happy manner, a charm and spirit wholly admirable.