The emotion passed and he lay staring at the ceiling, reconstructing midday of September the seventh beside Indian Run.

CHAPTER XXXIX

UNITY AND JACQUELINE

The library at Fontenoy lay west and north.  In the afternoon the sun struck through the windows and through the glass door, brightening the tall clock-face, the faint gilt and brown of old books, and the portrait of Henry Churchill with the swords crossed beneath.  Upon the forenoon in question, and even though the month was May, the room looked a sombre place, chill and dusk, shaded and grave as a hermit’s cell.

In the great chair upon the hearth sat Colonel Churchill, somewhat bowed together and with his hand over his eyes.  By the window stood Major Edward, very upright, very meagre, soldierly, and grey.  The northern light was upon him; with his pinned-up sleeve and lifted head he looked a figure of old defeats and indomitable mind.  From the middle of the room Fairfax Cary faced both the Churchills.

In his dark riding-dress, standing with his gloved hand upon the table, he gave in look and attitude a suggestion of formality, a subtle conveyance of determination.  He had been speaking, and now, after an interruption from one of the brothers, he continued.  “That was two weeks ago.  I have it clear, and I have my witness.  The murderer, leaving the body of my brother beside Indian Run, turned his horse, and, at a point just east of the rock where grows the mountain ash, he quitted the road for the mountain-side.  It is desperate riding over that ridge, but he made it as, two weeks ago, I made it, and he came out, as I came out, upon the high bank above the main road, a few yards below the blasted oak.  That, Colonel Churchill, is what he did, and what a jury shall see that he did.”

Colonel Dick let fall his hand.  “Fair, Fair, I never gainsaid that he was a villain—­”

“He appeared,” continued the younger man, “before my witness, torn and breathless.  There was blood upon his sleeve.  Now see what he does.  He rejoins his negro, and, if I know my man, he intimidates this boy into silence like the grave.  Together they pause at Red Fields, a precaution that quite naturally suggests itself to the lawyer mind.  But it is in the gloom of the storm, and he does not dismount—­a course which, again, he knows to be wise.  Apparently Red Fields notices nothing.  He rides on.  But he has yet to pass through town, to be accosted here, there, at the Eagle, the post-office, to be forced, perhaps, under peril of his refusal being scanned, to get down from his horse, answer questions, drink and talk with acquaintances.  He is torn, dishevelled.  There is blood upon his sleeve.  What does he think as he rides from Red Fields?  He thinks, ’Where can I best put myself in order, and remove this witness?’ That would be his thought, and he would have the answer ready.  He rode on to the edge of town, and there he stopped at Tom Mocket’s.”