The Major's voice, high and shaking with pa.s.sion, broke with a gasp. He had sat erect to speak, but now he sank back, and with his chin upon his hand looked again mere grey defeat.

Fairfax Cary turned from the window. "I am sorry," he said coldly and harshly. "In a lesser thing, Major Churchill, that consideration might stop me. It cannot do so, sir, in this."

"I am not asking that it should," answered the other. "I seldom ask too much of this humanity. You will do what you must, and what you will, and I shall comprehend your motive and your act. But I will stand clear of you, Fair. After to-day, you plan without my knowledge, and work without my aid!"

"If it must be so, sir."

"I have called myself," said Major Edward sombrely, "a Spartan and a Stoic. I believe in law and the payment of debts. I believe that a murderer should be tracked down and shown that civilization has no need of him. I loved your brother. And I sit here, a weak old man, and say, 'Not if it strikes through a woman's heart!' What a Stoic the Most High must be!"

"I think that I should know one thing, sir. Is it your belief that he has told your niece?"

The Major grew dark red, and straightened himself with a jerk. "Told my niece? Made her, sir, a confidante of his villainy, leagued her to aid him in cajoling the world? I think not, sir; I trust not! I would not believe even him so universal an enemy. If I thought that, sir,--but no!

I have seen my niece Jacqueline twice since--" the Major spoke between his teeth--"since Mr. Rand's return from Richmond." He sat a moment in silence, then continued. "Her grief is deep, as is natural--do we not all grieve? But if I have skill to read a face, she carries in her heart no such black stone as that! Remember, please, that he told her nothing of his plot with Burr. You will oblige me by no longer indulging such an idea."

"Very well, sir. I know that Colonel Churchill has no suspicion. He contends that it was some gypsy demon--will not even have it that some poor white from about the still--says that no man in this county--Well!

I, too, would have thought that once."

"My brother d.i.c.k has the innocence of a child. But others apparently suspect as little. You and I are alone there. And we have only the moral conviction, Fairfax. They were enemies, and they were in the same county on the same day. That is all you have to go upon. He has somehow made a coil that only the serpent himself can unwind."

"A man can but try, sir. I shall try. If you talk of an inner conviction, I have that conviction that I shall not try in vain."

Major Edward shaded his eyes with his hand. "G.o.d forbid that I should wish the murder of Ludwell Cary unavenged! But--but--shame and sorrow--and Henry Churchill's child"--He rose from his chair and stalked across the room. "I am tired of it all," he said, "tired of the world, life, death, pro and con, affections, hatreds, sweets that cloy, bitterness that does not nourish, the gash of events, and the salt with which memory rubs the wound! Man that is born of woman--Pah!" He straightened himself, flung up his grey head, and moved stiffly to a bookcase. "Where's Gascoigne's Steel Gla.s.se? I know you've got a copy--Ludwell told me so."

"It is on the third shelf, the left side. Major Churchill, you understand that, for all that has been said, I must yet go my way?"

"Yes, Fair, I understand," said the other. "Do what you must--and G.o.d help us all!"

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

FAIRFAX CARY

The December frost lay hard upon the ground, and a pale winter sky gleamed above and between bare limbs of trees. In Vinie Mocket's garden withered and bent stalk showed where had been zinnia and prince's feather, and the grapevine over the porch was but a ma.s.s of twisted stems. The sun shone bright, however, on this day, and as there was no wind, it was not hard to imagine it warm out-of-doors and the spring somewhere in keeping. It was the week before Christmas, and the season unwontedly mild.

Vinie, seated upon the doorstep in the sun, a grey shawl around her shoulders and her pink chin in her hand, stared at the Ragged Mountains and wondered when Tom was coming to dinner. A grey cat purred in the sun beside her. s.m.u.t the dog, lying in a patch of light upon the porch floor, broke out of a dream, got up, and wagged his tail.

"Who do you hear, s.m.u.t?" asked Vinie. "_I_ think it ith Mr. Adam."

Adam came through the gate that had never been mended and up the little, sunny path. He had his gun, and in addition a great armful of holly and mistletoe, and he deposited all alike upon the porch floor. "A green Christmas we're having," he announced cheerfully, "so we might as well make it greener! I thought these would look pretty over your chimney gla.s.s."

"They'll be lovely," answered Vinie. "I just somehow didn't think of fixing things up this Christmas. I'll put them all around the parlour, Mr. Adam."

"I'll put them for you," said Adam. "This isn't mistletoe like you get in the big trees south, and it isn't holly such as grows down Williamsburgh way--but it's mistletoe and it's holly."

"Yeth," agreed Vinie listlessly. "I don't know which ith the prettier, the little white waxen berries or the red."

"I like the red," returned the hunter. "That in your hand--bright and quick as blood-drops."

"No," said Vinie, and let the spray drop to the floor. "Blood ith darker than that."

"Not if it's heart's blood--that's bright enough. What is the matter, little partridge?"

"Nothing," Vinie replied, with an effort. "I've been baking cake all morning, and I'm tired. I reckon you couldn't have Christmas without baking and scrubbing and sweeping and dusting and making a whole lot of fuss about nothing--nothing at all." Her voice dragged away.

"You couldn't have it without hanging up mistletoe and holly," quoth Adam. "I've been a month in these parts, and I've come around mighty often to see you and Tom. Why won't you tell me?"

Vinie turned upon him startled eyes. "Tell you?"

"Tell me what ails you. Why, you aren't any more like--Don't you remember that morning, a'most four years ago, when I found you sitting by the blackberry bushes on the Fontenoy road? Yes, you do. The blackberries were in bloom, and you had on a pink sunbonnet, and I broke you a lot of wild cherry for your very same parlour in there. You had been crying that day, too,--oh, I knew!--but you plucked up spirit and put the wild cherry all around the parlour. And now, look at you!--you aren't a partridge any longer, you're a dove without a mate. Well, why don't you cry, little dove?"

"I don't feel like crying," said Vinie. "There isn't anything the matter with me. I'm going to put the green stuff up, and Tom's got ever so many wax candles and two bottles of Madeira, and you'll come to supper--"

"I'll send you a brace of wild turkeys Christmas Eve. I'll shoot them over on Indian Run."

Vinie shrank back. "You look," exclaimed Adam, "as though you were on Indian Run, and I had turned my gun on you! Why did you go white and sick like that?"

He glanced at her again with keen, deep blue eyes. "Now the colour has come back. Were you frightened over there in those woods when you really were a bird? Indian Run! It is more than three months, isn't it, since Mr. Cary's death?"

"December," answered Vinie, in a fluttering voice, "December, November, October, and part of September--yeth, more than three months. Suppose we go now and put the holly up?"

"Let's stay here a little in the sun. The holly won't wither. I don't know a doorstep, East or West, that I like to sit on better than this.

There's a variety of log cabins that I'm fond of, and maybe as many as four or five wigwams, but I'd like to grow old sitting in the sun before this little grey house! It isn't going to be long before the sap runs in the sugar trees and it's spring. Then all the pretty flowers will come up again and I'll help you draw cool water from the well. Don't you ever wear that Spanish comb I brought you?"

"I've got it put away. It's lovely."

"It oughtn't to be put away. It ought to be stuck there, dark sh.e.l.l above your yellow hair. You'll wear it, won't you, Christmas Day?"

"Yeth, I'll wear it, Mr. Adam. Who's coming now, s.m.u.t?"

"He hears a horse. Wear the Spanish comb, and Tom shall brew us a bowl of punch, and we might get in some gay folk and a fiddle and have a dance. I'd like to stand up with you, little partridge."

Vinie put down her head and began to cry. "It's nothing, nothing! There isn't anything the matter! Don't think it, Mr. Adam. I jutht get tired and cold, and Christmas isn't like it used to be. Now I've stopped--and I'll dance with you with pleasure, Mr. Adam."

"That's right," said Adam. "Now, you dry your eyes, and we'll go into the parlour and I'll make a fire, and we'll put leaves and berries all around. Who is it coming by? Mr. Fairfax Cary."

"Yeth," answered Vinie. "He rides a black horse."

The hunter glanced at her again. "Little bird," he thought, "your voice didn't use to have so many notes." Aloud he said, "He's grown to look like his brother. I met him in the road the other day and we talked awhile. He's too stern and quiet, though. All the time we talked I was thinking of a Cherokee whom I once met following a war party that had killed his wife. Fairfax Cary had just the same air as that Indian--still, like an afternoon on a mountain-top. There's no clue yet as to who shot his brother."

Fairfax Cary, going by on Saladin, lifted his hat to the woman on the porch. "Yes, he's like that Cherokee," repeated Adam. "Where's he riding?--to Fontenoy, I reckon. Now, little partridge, let's go make the parlour look like Christmas."

Vinie rose, and the hunter gathered up the green stuff. She spoke again in the same fluttered voice. "Mr. Adam, do you think--do you think they'll ever find out--"

"Find out who shot Mr. Cary?" asked Gaudylock. "They may--there's no telling. Every day makes a trail like that more overgrown and hard to read. But if Fairfax Cary is truly like my Cherokee, I'd not care to be the murderer, even five years and a thousand miles from here and now.

You may be sure the Cherokee got _his_ man. Now you take the mistletoe and I'll take the holly, and we'll make a Christmas bower to dance in."