“That is what I asked you.”

“Then nothing,” he replied, “nothing but the north wind.  Now about Carfax—­”

Advice given on the subject of all dealings with Carfax, the adviser rose to take his leave.  Mrs. Selden removed her spectacles and laid them in her key-basket.  It was a sign with her that she was about to speak her mind.

“Lewis,” she said, “I was a good friend to you once.”

“Do I not know that?” he answered.  “The best friend a poor boy ever had.”

“No, not quite that—­except, perhaps, to help you a little with Jacqueline.  Mr. Jefferson was the best friend a poor boy ever had.”

Rand winced.  “You say true.  The best friend a boy could have.  Give me another glass of wine, and then I’ll go.”

“A man like that during youth and a woman like Jacqueline for your manhood—­you have had much to prop your life.”

“Yes.  Very much.”

“Then,” she said sharply, “don’t let it fall.  Grow upward, Lewis, like the vine that gave its strength to make this generous wine!  If you don’t, you’ll disappoint your Maker, to say nothing of some poor earthly friends!  Don’t fall—­don’t run upon the earth like poison oak.  You’re meant for noble uses—­to help your kind, and to rejoice the heart of the Maker of strong men.  Don’t you fail and fall, Lewis Rand!”

Rand paused before her.  “How should I help my kind, now—­now?”

His old friend looked at him a little wonderingly.  “Do the simple right, my dear, whatever it is that you see before you.”

“The simple right!  And to rejoice the heart of my Maker—­if I have one?”

“Do the right strongly and surely, Lewis.”

“Whatever it is?”

“Whatever it is.”  Mrs. Jane Selden looked at him thoughtfully, her hands clasped upon her key-basket.  “I’m only an old woman—­just a camp-follower with an interest in the battle.  I wish that you had had a friend of your own age—­a man, and your equal in power and grasp.  Gaudylock and Mocket and such—­they’re well enough, but you’re high above them, you’re a sort of Emperor to them.  Could you but have had such a friend, Lewis—­a man like the Carys—­”

“For God’s sake, don’t!” cried Rand hoarsely.  He poured out a glass of wine, looked at it, and pushed it away.  “I will go now, for there is work waiting for me in town, and at home Do as I tell you about Carfax.  Good-bye, good-bye!”

Out upon the road, passing through a strip of pine and withered scrub, he raised his hand, and for some moments covered his eyes.  When he dropped it, he saw, in the strong purples of the winter evening, again that misty figure, riding this time, riding near him, not in the road, but apparent in the air against and between the tall trunks of pines.  “Cary,” he said again, “Cary!”

There was no response from the figure in the air.  “Cary,” cried Rand, “I would we had been friends!”

Selim reached the open country; the pines fell away, the form was gone.  Rand touched his horse with the spur and rode fast between brown stubble-fields darkening to the hills and to the evening sky.  “Friends,” he repeated, “friends!  That would be on terms of my doing the simple right—­the simple right after the most complicated wrong!  Terms! there are no terms.”