"Well, I have done so. It is not difficult." "No. It would, I imagine, come readily. Upon that evening, Maury Stafford, you lied to me." "I--" "Don't!" said Cleave. "Why should you make it worse? The impression which, that evening, you deliberately gave me, you on every after occasion as deliberately strengthened. Your action, then and since, brands you, sir, for what you are!" "And where," demanded Stafford hoarsely, "where did you get this precious information--or misinformation? Who was at the pains to persuade you--no hard matter, I warrant!--that I was dealing falsely? Your informant, sir, was mistaken, and I--" A shaft of sunshine, striking between the boughs, flooded the space in which they stood. It lit Cleave's head and face as by a candle closely held. The other uttered a sound, a hard and painful gasp. "You have seen her!" "Yes." "Did she tell you that?" "No. She does not know why I misunderstood. Nor shall I tell her." "You have seen her--You are happy?" "Yes, I am happy." "She loves you--She is going to marry you?" "Yes." The wood stood very quiet. The shaft of light drew up among the boughs. Stafford leaned against the trunk of the beech. He was breathing heavily; he looked, veritably, a wounded man. "I will go now," said Cleave. "I had to speak to you and I had to warn you. Good-day." He turned, the leaves crisp beneath his footfall. "Wait," said Stafford. "One moment--" He drew himself up against the beech. "I wish to tell you why I--as you phrase it--lied to you. I allowed you to rest under that impression which I am not sure that I myself gave you, because I thought her yet trembling between us, and that your withdrawal would be advantageous to my cause. Not for all of Heaven would I have had her turn to you! Now that, apparently, I have lost her irrevocably, I will tell you that you do not love her as I do. Have I not watched you? Did she die to-day, you would go on to-morrow with your _Duty_--_Duty_--_Duty_--! For me, I would kill myself on her grave. Where you and I were rivals and enemies, now we are enemies. Look out for me, Richard Cleave!" He began to laugh, a broken and mirthless sound. "Look out for me, Richard Cleave. Go!" "I shall," said Cleave. "I will not keep a watch upon you in such a moment, nor remember it. I doubt neither your passion nor your suffering. But in one thing, Maury Stafford, you have lied again. I love as strongly, and I love more highly than you do! As for your threats--threatened men live long." He turned, left the forest glade and came out into the camp lying now beneath the last rays of the sun. That evening he spent with Ewell and his staff, passed the night in a friendly tent, and at dawn turned Dundee's head toward the Blue Ridge. CHAPTER XVIII McDOWELL