A hemlock bough brushed violently against his face. He struck it aside, and, coming to the rocky top of a little rise, checked Selim for a moment of the fresher air. It came like a sigh from the darkening clouds. Rand looked out over field and forest to the massed horizon, then shook the reins, and Selim picked his way down the ridge to a woodland bottom through which flowed a stream. Rand heard the ripple of the water. A jutting boulder, crowned by a mountain ash, hid the road before him; he turned it and saw the stream, some yards away, flowing over mossed rocks and beneath a dark fringe of laurel. He saw more than the stream, for a horseman had paused upon the little rocky strand, and, hearing hoofs behind him, had partly turned his own steed. Rand's hand dragged at the bridle-rein and Selim stood still. For a moment the two men, so suddenly confronted, sat their horses and stared at each other. Between them was a narrow rocky space, about Rand a heavy frame of leaves, behind Cary the clear flowing stream. Above the treetops the mounting clouds were dark, but the sun rode hot and high in a round of unflecked azure. The silence held for a heartbeat, then Rand spoke thickly: "So you, too, took the river road?" "Yes. It is rough but short. When did you leave Richmond?" "As soon as I could. You would have been better pleased, would you not, had I never left it? In your opinion, I should be in durance there, laid by the heels with Aaron Burr!" "You are not yourself, Mr. Rand." "Do not push innocence upon the board! When did it begin, your deep interest in my concerns? Before the world was made, I think, for always we have been at odds. But this--this especial matter, Ludwell Cary, this began with the letter which you wrote and signed 'Aurelius'!" "A letter that told the truth, Mr. Rand." "That is as may be. Telling the truth is at times an occupation full of danger." "Is it?" "The nineteenth of February--ah, I have you there! Was it not--was it not a pleasant employment for a snowy night to sit by the fire and learn news of an enemy--news the more piquant for the lips that gave it!" "You are speaking, sir, both madly and falsely!" They pressed their horses more closely together. Cary was pale with anger, but upon Rand's face was a curious darkness. Men had seen Gideon look so, and in old Stephen Rand the peculiarity had been marked. When he spoke, it was in a voice that matched his aspect. "Last October in the Charlottesville court room--even that insult was not insult merely, but a trap as well! It is to be acknowledged that yours was the master mind. I walked into your trap." "That which I did is not to be called a trap. Your ambition enmeshed you then, as your passion blinds you now."