vindictive, I am not
revengeful. This is justice, and I can no other than pursue it. It will
not grieve you where you are." He turned and buried his face in the
pillow. "O brother--O friend--"

The emotion passed and he lay staring at the ceiling, reconstructing
midday of September the seventh beside Indian Run.

CHAPTER XXXIX

UNITY AND JACQUELINE

The library at Fontenoy lay west and north. In the afternoon the sun
struck through the windows and through the glass door, brightening the
tall clock-face, the faint gilt and brown of old books, and the portrait
of Henry Churchill with the swords crossed beneath. Upon the forenoon in
question, and even though the month was May, the room looked a sombre
place, chill and dusk, shaded and grave as a hermit's cell.

In the great chair upon the hearth sat Colonel Churchill, somewhat bowed
together and with his hand over his eyes. By the window stood Major
Edward, very upright, very meagre, soldierly, and grey. The northern
light was upon him; with his pinned-up sleeve and lifted head he looked
a figure of old defeats and indomitable mind. From the middle of the
room Fairfax Cary faced both the Churchills.

In his dark riding-dress, standing with his gloved hand upon the table,
he gave in look and attitude a suggestion of formality, a subtle
conveyance of determination. He had been speaking, and now, after an
interruption from one of the brothers, he continued. "That was two weeks
ago. I have it clear, and I have my witness. The murderer, leaving the
body of my brother beside Indian Run, turned his horse, and, at a point
just east of the rock where grows the mountain ash, he quitted the road
for the mountain-side. It is desperate riding over that ridge, but he
made it as, two weeks ago, I made it, and he came out, as I came out,
upon the high bank above the main road, a few yards below the blasted
oak. That, Colonel Churchill, is what he did, and what a jury shall see
that he did."

Colonel Dick let fall his hand. "Fair, Fair, I never gainsaid that he
was a villain--"

"He appeared," continued the younger man, "before my witness, torn and
breathless. There was blood upon his sleeve. Now see what he does. He
rejoins his negro, and, if I know my man, he intimidates this boy into
silence like the grave. Together they pause at Red Fields, a precaution
that quite naturally suggests itself to the lawyer mind. But it is in
the gloom of the storm, and he does not dismou