“I am your debtor, Mr. Cross.  That’s it—­that’s precisely it!  You heard it asserted by all around you that he had gone by, and your keen mind arrived at the same conclusion.  You saw and heard—­in a fog—­the negro boy, and later on your strong imagination provided him with a companion.  Just that—­you thought you saw two where there was but one!  I’m your servant, Mr. Cross, your very humble, very obliged servant!”

He drew out his purse, abstracted from it all the gold it contained, and gently slid the pieces into the hand which happened to rest upon the steps in an apt position for their reception.  “A trifle of drink-money, Mr. Cross!  If I might suggest a toast, I would have you drink to the next Governor of Virginia!  Good-day, Mr. Cross, good-day!  I think I begin to remember.”

He mounted and rode away.  “I begin to remember—­I begin to remember.  The boy and I were not always together upon the main road!  Did we part at the guide-post?  Then where did we come together again?”

He rode through March wind and sun, by fields where men were ploughing and copses where the bloodroot bloomed, beneath the branches of a great blasted oak, and past a red bank shelving down to the road from the forest above, then on by Red Fields, and so at last into Charlottesville.  Here he turned at once to the office of an agent and man of business much respected in Albemarle.

Mr. Smith rubbed his hands and asked what he could do for Mr. Cary—­who was looking well, extremely well!  “Spring is here, sir, spring is here!  We all feel it.  On a day like this I cultivate my garden, sir!”

“I also,” said Cary.  “Mr. Smith, my affair is short.  I will thank you to keep it secret also.  I want to buy, if possible, a negro boy called Young Isham, who is owned by Lewis Rand.  You may offer any price, but my name is not to appear.  Manage it skilfully, Mr. Smith, but manage it!  I have reasons for wishing to own the boy.  You will bear it in mind that my name is not to appear as purchaser.”

An hour later, nearing the Greenwood gates, he saw before him another horseman, bent from the saddle and engaged with the fastening.  Cary rode up.  “Ned Hunter, is it you?  Why, man, I have not seen you this long while!  Where have you been in hiding?”

“I have visited,” answered Mr. Hunter, “New York and the Eastern Shore.  You are looking well, Cary; better than you did at Christmas.  I was in this quarter, and so I thought I would stop at Greenwood.”

The two rode together up the hill, beneath the arching oaks.  The servants appeared, the horses were taken, and Cary and his guest entered the quiet old house.  A little later, in the drawing-room, over a blazing fire and a bottle of wine, Mr. Hunter laid aside a somewhat quaint air of injured dignity, and condescended to speak of Fontenoy and of how very changed it was since the old days.  “Nothing like so bright, sir, nothing like so bright!  I have not thought Miss Dandridge looking cheerful for more than a year—­and she used to be the gayest thing! always smiling, and with something witty to say every time I came near!  I hate changes.  This is good wine, Cary.”