She stopped him with the imperious little gesture he knew so well.

“Not another word, if you please.  I can’t do your errand in this, and I wouldn’t if I could.”

“You think I ought to be generous and give it to him, anyway, do you?”

“I don’t presume to say,” was the cool rejoinder.  “When you have come fully to your right mind, you will know what to do, and how to go about it.”

He crumpled the check, thrusting it into his pocket, and made two turns about the room before he said: 

“I’ll see them both hanged first!”

“Very well; that is your own affair.”

He fell to walking again, and for a full minute the silence was broken only by the murmur of men’s voices in the library adjoining.  The Major had company, it seemed.

“This is ‘good-by,’ Ardea; I’m going to-morrow.  Can’t we part friends?” he said, when the silence had begun to rankle unbearably.

“You’ve hurt me,” she declared, turning again to the window.

“You’ve hurt me, more than once,” he retorted, raising his voice more than he meant to; and she faced about quickly, holding up a warning finger.

“Mr. Henniker and Mr. Young-Dickson are in the library with grandpa.  They will hear you.”

“I don’t care.  I came here to-night with a heart full of what few good things there are left in me, and you—­you are so wrapped up in that beggar that I didn’t kill—­”

“Hush!” she commanded imperatively.  “Grandfather has not heard:  he knows nothing, and he must nev—­”

The murmur of voices in the adjoining room had suddenly become a storm, with the smooth tones of Mr. Henniker trying vainly to allay it.  In the thick of it the door of communication flew open and a white-haired, fierce-mustached figure of wrath appeared on the threshold.  For a moment Tom’s boyish awe of the old autocrat of Deer Trace came uppermost and he was tempted to run away.  But the wrath was not directed at him.  Indeed, the Major seemed not to see him.

“What’s all this I’m hearing now for the ve’y first time about these heah low-down, schemin’ scoundrels that want to mix thei-uh white-niggeh blood with ouhs?” he roared at Ardea, quite beside himself with passion.  “Wasn’t it enough that they should use my name and rob my good friend Caleb?  No, by heavens!  That snivelin’ young houn’-dog must pay his cou’t to you while he was keepin’ his—­”

The Major’s face had been growing redder, and he choked in sheer poverty of speech.  Moreover, Tom had come between; had taken Ardea in his arms protectingly and was fronting the firebrand Dabney like a man.

“That’s enough, Major,” he said definitely.  “You mustn’t say things you’ll be sorry for after you cool down a bit.  Miss Ardea is like the king:  she can do no wrong.”

There was a gasping pause, the sound of a big man breathing hard, followed by the slamming of the door, and they were alone together again, Ardea crying softly, with her face hidden on the shoulder of shielding.