I went to Richmond. To ask who is
it you suspect would be a question indiscreet--"

Cary sat with his eyes upon the dark azure above the treetops. "Not
yet," he said, in a brooding voice; "I have him not yet. Did you, Mr.
Pincornet, have any scruple when you took vengeance, near Mauleon?"

"None, sir! I served justice. Soldiers are not levied to murder at once
their faith and their officers. No more scruple than is yours in hunting
down the wild beast that killed your brother! You have my wishes there
for a good hunting!"

The Ancien Regime put up his snuffbox and brushed the fallen grains from
his old, old red brocade. "What a night for music and for love! The road
down yonder--it is like the silver ribbon they wear--they wore--at
court!"

"The road--the road!" exclaimed Cary. "I travel it in my sleep. It
haunts me as I haunt it. I know all its long stretches, all its turns--"
He sighed, and moved so as to face the whitened ribbon.

"You ride," said the dancing master; "but, for my own convenience, I go
afoot, and it is probable that I know it best."

They sat gazing down past garden and hillside to the still highway. "I
have not walked upon it, however," continued Mr. Pincornet reflectively,
"since September. I then went afoot from Clover Hill to Red Fields,
where I was taken ill. It was the seventh of September."

"The seventh of September!"

"I remember the day," continued Mr. Pincornet, "because I sat down under
a tree beside the road to rest, and I had an almanac in my pocket."

"You remember it by nothing else?"

"Why, by one thing more," answered the other. "I sat there, my head on
my hand, perhaps thinking of nothing, perhaps thinking of France--an
empty road and in the sky black clouds--when suddenly--what do you
say?--_clatter, crash!_ through the wood opposite and down a tall red
bank to the road came another pupil of mine--"

"Yes?" said Cary. "Who?"

"Mr. Lewis Rand."

Something fell to the floor with a slight sound. It was the book that
had rested upon Cary's crossed knee. He stooped and picked it up, then,
straightening himself, looked again at the silver ribbon. "Black clouds
in the sky," he said, in a curious voice, "and the seventh of September,
M. de Pincornet?"

"Yes," replied the other, "by the almanac. That was two days, was it
not, before your brother's death?"

"My brother, sir, was murdered upon the seventh of September."

"The seventh! The ninth! You mean the ninth! I hear