Edward, striving for indifference, achieved only a wonderful, grey hauteur.  They had been talking of the drouth, and they talked on while they went by Rand, but their voices sounded hollow like drums in a desert.  They took as little outward notice of the living man whose fate entwined with theirs as if he had been a bleached bone upon the desert sands.  They went on and, upon the porch above, mingled with a group of friends and neighbours.

Rand put himself in motion, and he and Fairfax Cary mounted step for step.  The elder man looked aside at his companion of the moment, slender and vigorous, boyishly handsome in his dark riding-dress.  He harboured no enmity towards the younger Cary, and for Unity he had only admiration and affection.  His mind was full of recesses, and in one of them there hovered on bright wings a desire for the esteem of these two.  In his day-dreams he steadily conferred upon them benefits, and in day-dreams he saw their feeling for him turn from prejudice to respect and fondness.  Now, after a moment’s hesitation, he spoke. “I have no quarrel, Mr. Cary, with a happiness that all the county is glad of.  Miss Dandridge and my wife are the fondest friends.  May I offer you my congratulations?”

He had ceased to move forward, and the other paused with him.  The younger Cary was thinking, “Now if I were Ludwell, I’d accept this with simplicity, since, damn him, in this the man’s sincere.”  He looked at the toe of his boot, swallowed hard, and then faced Rand with a sudden, transfiguring brightness of mien.  “I thank you, Mr. Rand.  Miss Dandridge is an angel, and I’m the happiest of men.  Will you tell Mrs. Rand so, with my best regards?” He hesitated a moment, then went on:  “No sign of rain!  This weather is calamitous!  I hope that Roselands has not suffered as Greenwood has done?”

“But it has,” said Rand, with a smile.  “The corn is all burned, and the entire state will make but little tobacco this year.  Miss Dandridge is better than an angel; she’s a very noble woman—­I wish you both long life and happiness!”

They said no more, but mounted the remaining steps to the level above.  Fairfax Cary joined the two Churchills and their friends, while Rand, after a just perceptible hesitation, entered the small room where the postmaster was filling, with great leisureliness, the leather mail-bag.  Besides himself there was no other there; even the window gave not upon the porch, but on a quiet, tangled garden.  He took the letter from his breast pocket and stood looking at it.  The postmaster, after the first word of greeting, went on with his work, whistling softly as he handled the stiffly folded, wax-splashed missives of the time.  The wind was in the west, and the fitful air came in from the withered garden and breathed upon Rand’s forehead.  He stood for perhaps five minutes looking at the letter, then with a curious and characteristic gesture of decision he walked to the high counter and with his own hand dropped it