Without, the night was indeed cooler, with a sighing wind, and in the west a thickening wrack of clouds.  It was very dark.  The restless and multitudinous flicker of the fireflies but emphasized the shadow, and the stars seemed few and dim.  It was near midnight, and the wide landscape below the mountain lay in darkness, save for one distant knoll where lights were burning.  That was Fontenoy, and Rand, looking toward it with knitted brows, wondered why the house was so brightly lighted at such an hour.  In another moment the road descended, the heavy trees shut out the view of the valley, and with very much indeed upon his mind, he thought no more of Fontenoy.  It was utterly necessary to him to find a remedy for the sting, keen and intolerable, which he bore with him from Monticello.  He felt the poison as he rode, and his mind searched, in passion and in haste, for the sovereign antidote.  He found it and applied it, and the rankling pain grew less.  Now more than ever was it necessary to go on.  Now more than ever he must commit himself without reserve to the strong current.  When it had borne him to a fair and far country, to kingship, sway, empire, and vast renown, then would this night be justified!

He left the mountain, and, riding rapidly, soon found himself upon the road to Roselands.  It was also the Greenwood road.  Between the two plantations lay a deep wood, and as he emerged from this, he saw before him in the dim starlight a horseman, coming towards him from Roselands.  “Is that you, Mocket?” he called.

The other drew rein.  “It is Ludwell Cary.  Good-evening, Mr. Rand.  I have just left Roselands.”

“Indeed?” exclaimed Rand.  “May I ask—­”

“I came from Fontenoy at the request of Colonel Churchill.  Mrs. Churchill fell suddenly very ill to-night.  They think she will not last many hours, and she asks continually for her niece.  Colonel Churchill sent me to beg Mrs. Rand to come without delay to Fontenoy.  I have delivered my message, and she but waits your return to Roselands—­”

“I will hurry on,” said Rand.  “Be so good as to tell Colonel Churchill that Joab will bring her in the chaise—­Mammy Chloe with her.  I am sorry for your news.  Accept, too, our thanks for the trouble to which you have put yourself—­”

“It is nothing,” answered Cary.  “My brother and I chanced to be at Fontenoy.  Mrs. Rand is much distressed, and I’ll detain you no longer—­”

He bowed, touched his horse, and rode into the wood.  Rand turned in his saddle and looked after him for a long moment, then shook his reins, broke into a gallop, and passed presently through the Roselands gates and up the dark drive to the stone steps and open door.  Jacqueline met him on the threshold.  She was trembling, but not weeping; there was even a wistful fire and passion in her dark eyes and a rose-leaf colour in her cheeks.  “Did you meet him?” she said.  “Did he tell you?  I am all ready.  He says that Aunt Nancy thinks that it is years ago, and that I’m Jacqueline Churchill still.  I thought you would never, never come”—­She turned and threw herself into his arms.  “Oh, Lewis, we are going to Fontenoy!”