The sunset light struck full upon the glass doors.  She wondered why, for the second time in an afternoon, Ludwell Cary wished to see Uncle Edward, there in the library.  Only once or twice, in the fortnight that she had been at Fontenoy, had she entered the library, and it was the room of all others that she loved.  She thought now of the old green chair and of her father’s portrait, and of every loved and dreamed-of detail, and she felt shut out in the dusk and chill.  A sensation of strangeness crept over her.  She thought, “If I were dead and trying to make the living hear, I should feel this way.  And they would not even try to hear; they would shut the door and keep me out, all alone in the dark.”

She stood for a full minute staring at the panes and the red reflected glare of the sun, then drew the scarf closer over her head, and took the path that led to the quarter.

CHAPTER XXII

MAJOR EDWARD

Rand rose from the supper-table and led the way into the dim, high-ceilinged room that served him as study and library.  “Bring the candles,” he said over his shoulder, and Tom Mocket obediently took up the heavy candelabra.  With the clustered lights illuminating freckled face and sandy hair, he followed his chief.  “Don’t you want me to start the fire?” he asked.  “These October nights are mortal cold.”

“Yes,” answered Rand.  “Put a light to it and make the room bright.  Fire is like a woman’s presence.”

As he spoke, he walked to the windows and drew the curtains, then took from his desk a number of papers and began to lay them in an orderly row upon the table in the middle of the room.  “Mrs. Churchill is quite out of danger.  My wife returns to Roselands to-morrow.”

“That’s fortunate,” quoth Mocket, on his knees before the great fireplace.  “You always did cut things mighty close, Lewis, and I must say you are cutting this one close!  Adam, he goes along from day to day laughing and singing, with a face as smooth as an egg, but I’ll warrant he’s watching the sun, the clock, and the hourglass!”

“I know—­I know,” said Rand.  “The sun is travelling, and the clock is striking, and the sands are running.  This was a cursed check, this illness at Fontenoy.  But for it I should be now upon the Ohio.”  He left the table and began to pace the room, his hands clasped behind him.  “Two weeks from here to this island—­then eight weeks for that twelve hundred miles of river, and to gather men from New Madrid and Baton Rouge and Bayou Pierre.  October, November, December.  Say New Orleans by the New Year.  There will be some seizing there,—­the banks, the shipping.  If the army joins us, all will be well.  But there, Tom, there! there is the ‘if’ in this project!”

“But you are sure of General Wilkinson!”