“There’s a horse coming up the drive.”

Rand dropped the paper in his hand and sat listening.  “Unlucky!  I wanted no visitor to-night.  It may be but a messenger.  Ring the bell, will you, for Joab.”

The horse came on and stopped before the great doorstone.  There was the sound of some one dismounting, Joab speaking, and then the voice of the horseman.  Rand started violently.  “Are we awake?” he said, rising.  “That is Major Churchill’s voice.”

Joab appeared at the door.  “Marse Lewis, Marse Edward Churchill say kin he trouble you fer a few minutes’ conversation?  He say he lak ter see you alone—­”

“One moment, Joab,” said the master, gathering the papers from the table as he spoke.  “Tom, you’ll go back to the dining-room and wait for me there.  No; not by that door—­there’s no use in his meeting you.  What imaginable thing has brought him here?” He replaced the papers in a drawer, closed and locked it, looked up to see that Mocket was gone, and spoke to the negro.  “Show Major Churchill in here.”

The Major entered, dry, withered, his empty sleeve pinned to the front of his riding-coat.  “Mr. Rand, good-evening.  Ha, a cheerful fire against a frosty night!  I come in out of the cold to a blaze like that, sir, and straightway, by a trick of the mind that never fails, I am back at Valley Forge!”

Rand looked at him keenly.  “Permit me to hope, sir, that there is nothing wrong at Fontenoy?  My wife is well?”

“Fontenoy is much as usual, sir,” answered his visitor, “and my niece is very well.  It is natural that my appearance here should cause surprise.”

Rand pushed forward a great chair.  “Yes, I am surprised,” he said, with a smile.  “Very much surprised.  But since you bring no bad news, I am also glad.  Won’t you sit, sir?  You are welcome to Roselands.”

Major Edward took the edge of the chair, and held out his long, thin fingers to the blaze.  “Yes; Valley Forge,” he repeated, with his dry deliberation.  “Valley Forge—­and starving soldiers moaning through the icy night!  Washington rarely slept; he sat there in his tent, planning, planning, in the cold, by the dim light.  There was a war—­and there were brave men—­and there was a patriot soul!”

“I learn from Jacqueline that Colonel Churchill and you too, sir, have shown her for some days past much kindness, tenderness, and consideration.  She has been made happy thereby.”

“My niece has never been other than dear to me, sir,” said the Major, and still warmed his hand.  “I believe, Mr. Rand, that your father fought bravely in the war?”

“He did his part, sir.  He was a scout with General Campbell and, I have heard, fought like a berserker at King’s Mountain.”

“If he did his part,” the Major replied, “he did well, and is to be reckoned among the patres patriae.  It is a good inheritance to derive from a patriot father.”

“So I have read, sir,” said Rand dryly.