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 Dick 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.  “God 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 Glasse?  I know you’ve got a copy—­Ludwell told me so.”