"Twelve, ten, eight," he counted slowly. "Six" was forming on the tip of the tongue when of a sudden the tiny flame veered far over toward the holder, sputtered and went out. For the first time in those interminable minutes, Arnold looked at his companion. Ichabod's face was within a foot of the table, and in line with the direction the flame had veered. Swift as thought the small man was on his feet, white anger in his face. "You blew that candle!" he challenged. Ichabod's head dropped into his hands. An awful horror of himself fell crushingly upon him; an abhorrence of the selfishness that could have forgotten--what he forgot; and for so long,--almost irrevocably long. Mingled with this feeling was a sudden thanksgiving for the boon of which he was unworthy; the memory at the eleventh hour, in time to do as he had done before his word was passed. Arnold strode across the room, his breath coming fast, his eyes flashing fire. He shook the tall man by the shoulder roughly. "You blew that flame, I say!" Ichabod looked up at the furious, dark face almost in surprise. "Yes, I blew it," he corroborated absently. "It would have burned longer." "Perhaps--I don't know." Arnold moved back a step and the old smile, mocking, maddening, spread over his face; tilting, perpendicular, the tips of the big moustaches. "After all--" very slowly--"after all, then, you're a coward." The tall man stood up; six-feet-two, long, bony, immovable: Ichabod himself again. "You know that's a lie." "You'll meet me again,--another way, then?" "No, never!" "I repeat, you're a cursed coward." "I'd be a coward if I did meet you," quickly. Something in Ichabod's voice caught the little man's ear and held him silent, as, for a long half-minute, the last time in their lives, the two men looked into each other's eyes. "You'll perhaps explain." Arnold's voice was cold as death. "You have a reason?" Ichabod walked slowly over to the window and leaned against the frame. Standing there, the spring sunshine fell full upon his face, drawing clear the furrows at the angles of his eyes and the gray threads of his hair. He paused a moment, looking out over the broad prairie shimmering indistinctly in the heat, and the calm of it all took hold of him, shone in his face. "I've a reason," very measuredly, "but it's not that I fear death, or you." He took up his hat and smoothed it absently. "In future I shall neither seek, nor avoid you. Do what you wish--and God judge us both." Without a glance at the other man, he turned toward the door. Arnold moved a step, as if to prevent him going. "I repeat, it's my right to know why you refuse." His feet shifted uneasily upon the floor. "Is it because of another--Eleanor?" Ichabod paused. "Yes," very slowly. "It's because of Eleanor--_and_ another."