rightly, and you have not done so in blind passion but in cold blood, fully and freely, under whatever monstrous light it is by which you think you walk!  I have warned you of the gulf, and I have warned in vain.  So be it!  But do not think, sir, do not think that you will be allowed to drag with you, down into the darkness, the woman whom you have married!  I wish that my niece had died before she saw your face!  Do you know what she thinks you, sir?  She thinks you a lover so devoted that at her pleading you put forever from you a gilded lure; a gentleman so absolutely of your word that for her to doubt it would be the blackest treason; a statesman and a patriot who will yet nobly serve Virginia and the country!  God knows what she doesn’t think you—­the misguided child!  She’s happy to-night, at Fontenoy, because she’s coming home to you to-morrow.  That I should have lived to say such a thing of Henry Churchill’s daughter!  When I rode away to-night, she was singing.”  He burst into spasmodic and grating laughter.  “It was that song of Lovelace’s!  By God, sir, she must have had you in mind.

     “I could not love thee, dear, so much,
       Loved I not honour more.

“Yes, by God, she was thinking of you!  Ha ha, ha ha!”

“You are an old man,” said Rand.  “It is well for you that you are.  I wish to know who is responsible for these conjectures, suspicions, charges—­whatever term you choose, sir, for all are alike indifferent to me—­which brought you here to-night?  Who, sir, is the principal in this affair?  You are an old man, and you are my wife’s kinsman; doubly are you behind cover; but who, who, Major Churchill, set you on to speak of towering ambition and blood-drenched wings and broken vows and deceived innocence, and all the rest of this night’s farrago?  Who, I say—­who?”

“Ask on, sir,” answered the Major grimly.  “There is no law against asking, as there is none to compel an answer.  Sir, I am about to remove myself from a house that I shall not trouble again, and I have but three words to say before I bid you good-night.  I warn you not to proceed with your Luciferian schemes, whatever they may be, sir, whatever they may be!  I warn you that it is ill travelling over the mountains at this season of the year, and I solemnly protest to you that my niece shall not travel with you!”

“And who,” asked Rand calmly,—­“and who will prevent that?”

“Sir,” answered the other, “a grain of sand or a blade of grass, if rightly placed.”  He shook his long forefinger at the younger man.  “You have been fortunate for a long turn in the game, Lewis Rand, and you have grown to think the revolving earth but a pin-wheel for your turning.  You will awake some day, and since there is that in you which charity might call perverted greatness, I think that you will suffer when you awake.  In which hope, sir, I take my leave.  Mr. Rand, I have the honour to bid you a very good-night.”