Rand won the case, and turned Selim’s head toward Albemarle.  There had been a weary half day of thanks and protestations, and he was conscious of a dull relief when the last house was left behind, when the cultivated fields fell away, and the Virginian forest, still so dominant in the landscape, opened its dark arms and drew him in.

He rode slowly now, with drooping head.  Young Isham, some yards behind, almost went to sleep in his saddle, so dragging was the tread the mare must follow.  The dark aisle of the forest led presently through a gorge where the woods were in effect primeval.  Upon the one hand rose a bank, thick with delicate moss and fern and shaded by birch and ash; on the other the ravine fell precipitously to hidden water, and was choked by towering pine and hemlock.  The air was heavy, cool, and dank, the sunshine entering sparsely.  The place was, however, a haunt of birds, and now a wood robin answered its mate.

Rand rode more and more slowly.  The way was narrow, but here and there, between it and the bank, appeared grey boulders sunk in all the fairy growth of early spring.  He drew rein, bared his head, and looked about him, then dismounted and spoke to Young Isham, coming up behind.  “I will sit here a little and rest, Young Isham.  Take Selim with you around the turn and wait for me there.  I’m tired, tired, tired!”

The negro obeyed, and the master was left alone Beside the road, beneath the mossy bank, lay a great fallen rock Rand flung himself down upon this, and as he did so, he remembered a river-bank, a sycamore, and a rock upon which a boy of fourteen had lain and watched, coming over the hill-top, distinct against the sunset sky, the god from the machine It was such a stone as this, and it was seventeen years ago “Seventeen years.  And a thousand years in Thy sight—­”

The past weeks had seen a change in the condition of his brain.  He was yet all but sleepless, and the physical strain had weakened his frame and sharpened his features, but the sheer force of the man, asserting itself, had put down the first wild inner tumult.  Imagination was not now whipped to giddy heights, it kept a full, dark level.  When, at long intervals, he slept, it was to dream, but not so dreadfully.  He had no more visions such as had haunted him in January.  The thought of Cary was with him, full and deep, a clean and bitter agony, but he saw him no more save with the eye of the mind.  He was as rational as a sleepless man with a murder on his soul might well be, and he suffered as he had hardly suffered before.

With his face buried in his arms he lay very still upon the rock.  He lay in shadow, but the sunlight was on the treetops above him.  The wood robin yet uttered its bell-like note, the moist wind brought down the bank the fragrance of the fringe tree to blend with the deeper odour of the pine and hemlock.  Rand lay without moving, the fingers of one outstretched hand clenched upon the edges of the rock.  “A thousand years in Thy sight—­and my day is as a thousand years.  Oh, my God!”