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 reaching that wand. It has seemed to me, sitting there at Greenwood, it has seemed to me after Page's visit, that I should give you freedom--"

"It seems to me, sitting here upon this stone," answered Unity, "that I will not take it! And what under the sun Mr. Page's visit--I will wait until you are at leisure to love me as--as--as you loved me that day under the catalpa when you flung Elosa to Abelard into the rosebushes!

Don't--don't! I like to cry a little."

"I have determined," he said, "to tell you what I am doing. You know that I seek to discover my brother's murderer, but you have not guessed that I know his name. It is Lewis Rand whom I pursue, and it is Lewis Rand whom I will convict of that deed on Indian Run!"

She gave a cry. "Lewis Rand! Fair, Fair, that's impossible!"

"Is it?" he asked sombrely. "Impossible to prove, perhaps, though I'm not prepared to grant that either, but true, Unity, true as many another black 'impossible' has been!"

"But--but--No one thinks--no one suspects. Fair, Fair! are you not mistaken?"

"No. Nor am I quite alone in my conviction. And one day the world that suspects nothing shall know."

There was a silence; then, "But Jacqueline," she whispered, with whitening lips. "Jacqueline"--

"She chose," he answered. "I cannot help it. She took her road and her companion."

"And you mean--you mean--"

"I mean to bring him to justice."

"To break her heart and ruin her life--to bring down wretchedness, misery, disgrace! Oh!" She caught her breath. "And Deb--and Uncle d.i.c.k and Uncle Edward--Fair, Fair, leave him alone!"

"You must not ask me that."

"But Ludwell would--Ludwell would have asked it! Oh, do you think he would have endured to bring woe like that upon her! Oh, Fair, Fair,--"

Cary sprang to his feet, walked away, and stood with his back to the great stone and his face toward Greenwood. He saw but one thing there, the graveyard on the hill beneath the leafless trees. When he came back to Unity, he looked as he had looked beside the dead, that day on Indian Run.

"We are alike, Ludwell and I," he said, "but we are not that much alike.

I am little now but an avenger of blood. I shall be that until this draws to an end." He came closer and touched her shoulder with his hand.

"Take me or leave me as I am, Unity. I shall not change, not even for you."

"But for tenderness," she cried, "for mercy, for consideration of an old house, for Jacqueline whom your brother loved as you love--as once you said you loved--me! For just pity, Fair!"

"On the other side," he answered, "is justice. Don't urge me, Unity.

That is something your uncle has not done."

"Uncle Edward?"

"Yes."

There was a silence; then, "I see now," said Unity slowly. "I haven't understood. I thought--I didn't know what to think. Uncle Edward, too,--oh me! oh me! That is why Deb is not to go to Roselands." She considered through blinding tears a little patch of sere gra.s.s. "But Jacqueline," she whispered,--"Jacqueline does not know?"

Cary looked at her. "Do you think that, Unity?"

Unity stared at the gra.s.s until the tears all dried. "She knows--she knows! That was a heart-breaking letter to Deb, and I couldn't--I couldn't understand it! She does not ask me there--does not seem to want to meet--I've hardly seen her since--since--And when we meet, she's strange--too gay at first for her, and then too still, with wide eyes she will not let me read. And she talks and talks--she talks now more than I do. She's not truly Jacqueline--she's acting a part. Oh, Jacqueline, Jacqueline!"

"Be very sure," he said, "that I have for her only pity, admiration, yes, and understanding!"

"But you intend--you intend--"

"To bring Lewis Rand to justice. Yes, I intend that."

From the quarter below them came the blowing of the afternoon horn. The short, bright winter day was waning, and though the sun yet dwelt upon the hill-top, the hollow at its base was filled with shadow. Unity rose from the stone. "I must go back to the house. I promised Deb I would read to her." She caught her breath. "It is the Arabian Nights--and he gave it to her, and she's always talking of him. Oh, all of us poor children! Oh, I used to think the world so sweet and gay!"

"What do you think," he said, "of the one who turns it bitter?"

She looked at him with pleading eyes. "Fair, Fair, will you not forego it--forego vengeance?"

"It is not vengeance," he answered. "It is something deeper than that. I don't think that I can explain. It seems to me that it is destiny and all that destiny rests upon." He drew her to him and kissed her twice.

"Will you wait for me, wait on no other terms than these? If you will, G.o.d bless you! If it is a task beyond your strength, G.o.d bless you still. You will do right to give it up. Which, Unity, which? And if you wait for me, you must go no more to that man's house. If you wait for me, my brother is your brother."

"I will never give up Jacqueline!"

"I do not ask it. But you'll go no more to that house, speak no more to the man she most unhappily wedded. That is my right--if you wait for me."

She turned and threw herself into his arms. "Oh, Fair, if it is only he himself--if it is only that dark and wicked man--if you do not ask me to stop loving her, or writing to her, or seeing her when I can--"

"That is all--only to speak no more to that dark and wicked man."

"Then I'll wait--I'll wait till doomsday! Oh, the world! Oh, the thing called love! Don't--don't speak to me until I cry it out."

She wept for a while, then dried her eyes and tried to smile. "That's over. Let us go now and--and read the Arabian Nights. Oh me, oh me, if we are not merry here, what must Christmas be at Roselands!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV

THE IMAGE

The murderer of Ludwell Cary unlocked the green door of the office in Charlottesville, entered, and opened the shutters of the small, square windows. Outside was a tangle of rose-stems, but no leaf or bloom. The January sunshine streamed palely in, whitening the deal floor and striking against a great land map on the wall. Upon the hearth had been thrown an armful of hickory and pine. Rand, kneeling, laid a fire, struck a spark into the tinder, and had speedily a leap and colour of pointed flames. He rose, opened his desk, drew papers out of pigeon-holes and laid them in order upon the wood, then pushed before it his accustomed chair. He did not take the latter; instead, after standing a moment with an indescribable air of weary uncertainty, he turned, went back to the firelit hearth, sat down, and, bending forward, hid his face in his hands.

A cricket began to chirp upon the hearth, then the branch of a sycamore, moved by the wind, struck violently against the low eaves of the house.