arted in deep-laid and cherished schemes by the one whom, for no
especially good reason, I have singled out of the world to be my enemy!
I want to feel the black rage of the Rands in my heart. I want to sleep,
the third night, at the Cross Roads Tavern, and I want to go on in the
morning by Malplaquet I want to learn at Forrest's forge that Ludwell
Cary is on the road before me. Perhaps, by the time I reach the mill and
cross the ford, I will remember what it was that I did next, and how I
managed to be on two roads at once."

He turned, and took up from a chair his hat and riding-whip "'Tis no
easy feat," he said, with grimness, "to put one's self in the place of
Lewis Rand. But then, other things are not easy either. I'll not grudge
a little straining." He stood before the Major, holding out his hand--a
handsome figure in his mourning dress, resolute, quiet, no longer
breathing outward grief, ready even, when occasion demanded, to smile or
to laugh, but essentially altered and fixed to one point. "I think, sir,
I will look now for Unity. There is something I wish to say to her.
Good-bye, sir. I shall not come again until after New Year."

Miss Dandridge, mounting the hill from the quarter, and sitting down to
rest upon a great, sun-bathed stone beside the foot-path, heard a quick
step and looked up to greet her betrothed. "It is so warm and bright,"
she said, "in this fence-corner that I feel as though summer were on the
way. The stone is large--there's room for you, too, here in the
sunshine."

He sat down beside her. "You have been making Christmas for the
quarter?"

"I've been telling them that Christmas is to be bright. I have not seen
you for a week."

He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Unity, I have been sitting
there at home at Greenwood, thinking, thinking! Page came to see me, but
I was such poor company that he did not tarry long. I rode here to-day
to say something to you--Unity, don't you think you had better give me
up?"

"No! I don't--"

"I do not think it is fair to you. I am not the man you knew--except in
loving you I am not the man who sat with you beneath the catalpa. I am
bereaved of the better part of me, and I see one object held up before
me like a wand. I must reach that wand or all effort is fruitless, and
there is no achievement and no harvest in my life. I may be years in
reaching it. I love you dearly and deeply, but I am not given over to
love. I am given over to reachi