"Sir," answered the other, "a grain of sand or a blade of grass, if rightly placed." He shook his long forefinger at the younger man. "You have been fortunate for a long turn in the game, Lewis Rand, and you have grown to think the revolving earth but a pin-wheel for your turning. You will awake some day, and since there is that in you which charity might call perverted greatness, I think that you will suffer when you awake. In which hope, sir, I take my leave. Mr. Rand, I have the honour to bid you a very good-night." The master of Roselands rang the bell. "Good-night, Major Churchill. I am sorry that we part no better friends, and I regret that you will not tell me what gatherer up of rumour and discoverer of mares' nests was at the pains to procure me the honour of this visit. I might hazard a guess--but no matter. Joab, Major Churchill's horse. Good-night, sir." He bowed formally. Major Churchill stood for a moment looking straight before him with a somewhat glassy stare, then, "Good-night, Mr. Rand," he said, in a voice like a wind through November reeds, made a bow as low and as studied as that with which he had once honoured Rand in the Fontenoy drawing-room, turned with martial precision, and stalked from the room. Lewis Rand stood long upon the hearth, staring down into the fire. He heard Major Edward's horse go down the drive and out upon the highroad with a swiftness that spoke of a rider in a passion. The sound of hoofs died away, and he still stood looking into the red hollows, but at last with a short and angry laugh he turned away and opened the door which led to the dining-room. "Are you still there, Tom? Come in, man! The accusing angel has gone." Tom appeared, and the two went back to the great table in the centre of the room. Rand unlocked the drawer and took out the papers in the perusal of which they had been interrupted. Mocket snuffed the candles and tossed another log of hickory upon the fire. "It falls in with what Gaudylock suspected," said Rand's measured voice behind him, "and it all dates back to the nineteenth of February. When he left the house that night, he must have known--" "Of whom are you talking?" asked Tom at the fire. "Major Edward?" "No, not Major Edward. And now he is using his knowledge. She told me to-day that he was often at Fontenoy. Too often, too often, Ludwell Cary!" "Now, after stopping my mouth, you have spoken his name yourself!" remarked Tom. "You and he are over against each other in that case to-morrow, aren't you?" "In every case we are over against each other," said the other abruptly. "And we shall be so until Judgment Day. Come, man, come! we have all these to go through with before cockcrow." CHAPTER XXIII A CHALLENGE