“It will be all over but the shouting, then. She will doubtless tell me what she thinks of me and break the engagement, there and then--or try to. But that is the one thing I can’t let her do, Poictiers. She needs the Uncle Byrd legacy, and I mustn’t let her lose it.” Carfax got up and reached for the matches and his bed-room candle. “No,” he said slowly; “you mustn’t let her lose the legacy. To a man up a tree it would seem that the money is about all she is going to salvage out of the wreck.” With which unkind daggering of the sinner whose sin had found him out, he went to bed. XXIII At Westwood House The autumn Sunday afternoon figured as the flawless half of a day of perfection, with the sky a vivid blue and the hardwood forest of the mountain top, lately touched by the first sharp frosts, a riot of gorgeous coloring. On the broad veranda of the ancient manor-house of Westwood the conversation, which had been desultory at best, languished in sympathy with the reposeful spell of time and place and the peaceful surroundings. With a gently worded phrase of apology to his daughter’s guest, the judge had pleaded an old man’s privilege, dragging his chair to the farther end of the veranda and lighting his corn-cob pipe in courteous isolation. Tregarvon marked the bit of old-fashioned chivalric deference to Elizabeth, and wondered how many men of his own generation would be as thoughtfully considerate of the small amenities. The thought was one of a series emphasizing the gross incredibility of the theory involving Richardia’s father in the conspiracy against the Ocoee. That the white-haired, ruddy-faced Chesterfield of Westwood House might challenge an antagonist, give him the choice of weapons, and afterward kill him unflinchingly, was easily conceivable. But that he would descend to the methods of the dynamiter or the midnight assassin was momently growing more and more unbelievable. With Elizabeth for his _vis-à-vis_ in her broad-armed veranda chair, Tregarvon was finding it increasingly difficult to fix his attention upon the Ocoeean mysteries. For some reasons--the unfamiliar surroundings, the gap of absence so suddenly and unexpectedly bridged, or because there was some subtle change in her--his cousin was singularly reticent. While the talk remained general she took her part in it; but whenever it threatened to become a dialogue, Tregarvon was instantly made to feel the raising of the barrier. Since the guilty flee when no man pursueth, Tregarvon fancied he need be at no loss to account for Miss Wardwell’s attitude. She had doubtless received his confession letter--though no mention had been made of it--and beyond that, she and Richardia had in all probability been comparing notes. He could feel the presence of the Damoclean sword suspended above his head, and was looking forward unjoyously to the moment when chance, or design on the part of Carfax and Richardia, would give Miss Wardwell her reproachful opportunity.