As he spoke, he moved to face the fire.  He had not raised his voice, but he had given it carrying quality.  Cary raised his eyes, and laid down the paper he had in his hand.  A genial, down-river planter and magistrate entered the conversation.  “Well, I for one don’t hold with all this latter-day hiding behind names out of Roman history!  Brutus and Cato and Helvidius, Decius and Aurelius, and all the rest of them!  Is a man ashamed of his English name?”

“Or afraid?” said Rand, then bit his lip.  He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last.  His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage.  It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels.  Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and flung off his pursuer; sometimes he left him far behind; more than once he had seen him mastered and done with, dead by the wayside, had drawn free breath, and had gone on with a victor’s brow.  Then, when all the fields were smiling, came at a bound the dark shape, leaped at the throat, and hung there.  It was so this evening at Lynch’s.  He strove with his passion, but he was aware of a wish to strive no longer, to let the black dog have his way.

There was a laugh for the speaker before him.  “You see, sir,” cried a noted lawyer, “Brutus and Cato, Helvidius, Decius, and Aurelius, and all the noble Romans died before duelling came in!  ’Sir, the editor of the—­ahem!—­newspaper, I take exception to this statement in your pages.’  ‘Sir, I refer you to Junius Brutus.  Answer, Roman!’ Never a sound from Limbo!—­’Sir, Decius has grossly misrepresented.  Where shall I send my challenge?’ ’To Hades, no less!  Not the least use in knocking up John Randolph of Roanoke.’—­’Sir, I am at odds with Aurelius.  Pray favour me with the gentleman’s address.’  ’Sir, he left no name.  You see, he lived so long ago!’”

Amid the laugh that followed, Cary turned a smiling face upon the speaker. “I will answer, Mr. Wickham, for Aurelius.  Do you really want to challenge me?” He slightly changed his position so as to confront Rand’s table.  “In this instance, Mr. Rand, I am certain there was no fear.”

His speech, heard of all, wrought in various ways.  Mocket the day before had not exaggerated the general interest in the letter signed “Aurelius.”  Now at Lynch’s there arose a small tumult of surprise, acclaim, enthusiasm, and dissent.  His friends broke into triumph, his political enemies—­he had few others—­strove for a deeper frown and a growling note.  The only indifferent in Lynch’s was Adam Gaudylock, who smoked tranquilly on, not having read the letter in question nor being concerned with Roman history.  Lewis Rand sat in silence with compressed lips, bodily there in the lit coffee room, but the inner man far away on the mind’s dark plains, struggling with the fiend that dogged him.  Fairfax Cary’s cheek glowed and his eyes shone.  He looked at his brother, then poured a glass of wine and raised it to his lips.  “Wait, Fairfax!  We’ll all drink with you!” cried a neighbour.  “Gentlemen and Federalists, glasses!—­Ludwell Cary, and may he live to hear his children’s children read ’Aurelius’!”