The light and shadow made no answer. Rand waited, gazing with some fixedness, and imagination at white heat saw the head, the face, the form, the quiet dress, the whole air of the man, the look within his eyes and the smile upon his lips. The figure sat at ease, as of old it had sat upon the Justice's Bench the day of the election, as it had sat beside the bed in the blue room at Fontenoy. Imagination laid Lewis Rand again in that room, showed him the mandarin screen, the sunny, happy morning, the pansies in the bowl. "If," he cried,--"if I had died then, I had not died a wicked man. Cary--Cary--Cary! I am in torment!" There came no reply. Rand bowed his head. Without, in the afternoon sky, a cloud hid the sun. When the solitary man in the deserted house looked again, there were no shafts of light, no dark between to create illusion; all was even dusk, forbidding, grey, and cold. He rose from the settle and left the room and the house. Selim whinnied at the gate, and his master, coming swiftly down the path and out of the enclosure, unknotted the reins, mounted, and rode off at speed. Rand's haste did not hold. Remorse does not necessarily break habit, and the habit of his lifetime was attention to detail, system in matters of business, scrupulous response to the call where he acknowledged the right. He drew rein at Mrs. Selden's, dismounted, and lifted the knocker. Cousin Jane Selden herself met him in the hail. "Lewis! I'm as glad to see you as if you brought the south wind! Come in to the fire, and I'll ring for cake and wine. It is bitter weather even for January. All's well at Roselands?" "All's well." They entered the small parlour and sat down before the fire. "I saw Jacqueline," continued Mrs. Selden, "at church last Sunday. I thought her looking very badly pale and absent. I know, Lewis Rand, that you love each other dearly. There has been no quarrel?" "No quarrel." "I don't know," quoth Mrs. Selden, "of which I'm most sensible when it's in the air--an east wind or something amiss. The wind's in the north to-day, but the latter's on my mind. What is wrong, Lewis?" "My dear old friend, what should be wrong?" "That is what I asked you." "Then nothing," he replied, "nothing but the north wind. Now about Carfax--" Advice given on the subject of all dealings with Carfax, the adviser rose to take his leave. Mrs. Selden removed her spectacles and laid them in her key-basket. It was a sign with her that she was about to speak her mind. "Lewis," she said, "I was a good friend to you once." "Do I not know that?" he answered. "The best friend a poor boy ever had." "No, not quite that--except, perhaps, to help you a little with Jacqueline. Mr. Jefferson was the best friend a poor boy ever had." Rand winced. "You say true. The best friend a boy could have. Give me another glass of wine, and then I'll go." "A man like that during youth and a woman like Jacqueline for your manhood--you have had much to prop your life."