The night wind blew against them.  Fireflies shone and grey moths went by to the lighted windows; above the treetops a bat wheeled and wheeled.  The clock struck again, then from far away a whippoorwill began to call.  They sat side by side upon the doorstone, her head against his shoulder, their hands locked.

“What will you do?” he said.  “What will you do?  Day and night I think of that!”

“Could I stay on here?  I would like to.”

“I have put all affairs in order.  The place and the servants are yours.  I’vee paid every debt, I think.  Mocket knows—­he’ll show you.  But to live on here alone—­”

“It will be the less alone.  Don’t fear for me—­don’t think for me.  I will find courage.  To-morrow!”

“It is best,” he said, “that I should tell you that which others may think to comfort you with.  It is possible, but I do not consider it probable, that the sentence will be death.  It will be, I think, the Penitentiary.  I had rather it was the other.”

After a time she spoke, though with difficulty.  “Yes—­I had rather—­for you.  For myself, I feel to-night that just to know you were alive would be happiness enough.  Either way—­either way—­to have loved you has been for me my crown of life!”

“I have written to Colonel Churchill, and a line to Fairfax Cary.  There was much to do at the last.  Now it is all done, and I will go early in the morning.  You knew that it was drawing to this end—­”

“Yes, I knew—­I knew.  Lewis, Lewis! what will you do yonder all the days the months—­the—­the years to come?  Oh, unendurable!  O God, have mercy!”

“I will work,” he answered.  “It is work, Jacqueline, with me—­it is work or die!  I will work.  That which I have brought upon myself I will try to endure.  And out of effort may come at last—­I know not what.”

They sat still upon the stone.  The wind sank, the air grew colder; near and far there gathered a feeling of the north, a sense of loneliness and untrodden space.  The whippoorwill called again.

Rand shuddered.  “Our last night—­it is our last night.  Look!—­a star shot over the Three-Notched Road.”

Jacqueline slipped from his clasp and stood upright, with her hands over her ears.  “Come indoors—­come indoors!  I cannot bear the whippoorwill!”

Early the next morning he rode away.  Halfway down the drive he looked back and saw her standing under the beech tree.  She raised her hand, her scarf fluttering back from it.  It was the gesture of a princess, watching a knight ride from her tower.  The green boughs came between them; he was gone, and she sank down upon the bench beneath the tree.  It was there that Major Edward found her, an hour later.