“That which I did is not to be called a trap.  Your ambition enmeshed you then, as your passion blinds you now.”

Rand’s voice darkened and fell.  “Who gave you—­who gave you the right of inquisition?  What has your soul or your way of thinking to do with mine?  You are not my keeper.  I would not take salvation at your hands—­by God, no!  Why should the thought of you lie at the bottom of each day?  It shall not lie at the bottom of this one!  I do not know where first we met, but now we’ll part.  You have laid your finger here and you have laid it there, now take your hand away!”

“Do you well, and I will,” said Cary sternly.

The other drew a labouring breath.  “Two weeks ago I was in Williamsburgh, in the Apollo, listening in the heat to idle talk—­and you in Richmond, you came at her call!  You came down the quiet street, and in between the box bushes, and up the steps under the honeysuckle.  What did you say to her there in the dusk, by the window?  You were a Cary—­you were part and parcel of the loved past—­you had all the shibboleths—­you could comfort, commiserate, and counsel!  Ha!  I wish I might have heard.  ‘Aurelius’ dealing with the forsworn and the absent!  ’Here the blot, and there the stain, and yon a rent that’s hard to mend.  If there’s salvation, I see it not at present.’  So you resolved all her doubts, and laid within her hand every link of a long chain.  You have my thanks.”

[Illustration:  CARY SAW AND FLUNG OUT HIS ARM, SWERVING HIS HORSE, BUT TOO LATE]

“I will not,” said Cary, after a silence,—­“I will not be moved by you now, and I will not talk with you now.  You are beside yourself.  I will say good-day to you, Mr. Rand, and in a less passionate hour I will tell you that you have judged me wrongly.”

He gathered up his reins and slightly turned his horse.  It had been wiser to break into violent speech, or even to deal the other a blow.  As it was, the very restraint of his action was spark to gunpowder.  Rand’s hand fell to a holster, drew and raised a pistol.  Cary saw and flung out his arm, swerving his horse, but too late.  There was a flash and a report.  The reins dropped from Cary’s grasp; he sank forward upon his horse’s neck, then, while the terrified animal reared and plunged, fell heavily to earth and lay beside the stream with a ball through his heart.

CHAPTER XXX

HOMEWARD

The frightened birds rose in numbers from the forest trees.  Cary’s horse, with a snort of terror, reared and turned.  Rand flung himself from Selim and dashed forward to the black’s bridle, but he was too late.  The horse clattered down the little strand, plunged into the flashing water, and in another moment reached the opposite bank and tore away along the river road.

The sound of hoofs died away.  All sound seemed to die, that of the stream, of the birds, of the air in the trees.  It was as still as the desert.  Very quietly and subtly the outward world put itself in accord with the inward; never again would sky or earth, tree or leaf or crystal water, be what it was an hour ago.  Life and the scenery of life had a new aspect.