The air was very still and clear. He heard a carriage before him on the road. It was coming toward him--a horseman, too, evidently riding beside it. Just ahead the road crossed a bridge--not a good place for passing in the night-time. Cleave drew a little aside, reining in Dundee. With a hollow rumbling the carriage passed the streams. It proved to be an old-fashioned coach with lamps, drawn by strong, slow grey horses. Cleave recognized the Silver Hill equipage. Silver Hill must have been supping with Lauderdale. Immediately he divined who was the horseman. The carriage drew alongside, the lamps making a small ring of light. "Good-evening, Mr. Stafford!" said Cleave. The other raised his hat. "Mr. Cleave, is it not? Good-evening, sir!" A voice spoke within the coach. "It's Richard Cleave now! Stop, Ephraim!" The slow grey horses came to a stand. Cleave dismounted, and came, hat in hand, to the coach window. The mistress of Silver Hill, a young married woman, frank and sweet, put out a hand. "Good-evening, Mr. Cleave! You are on your way to Lauderdale? My sister and Maury Stafford and I are carrying Judith off to Silver Hill for the night.--She wants to give you a message--" She moved aside and Judith took her place--Judith in fur cap and cloak, her beautiful face just lit by the coach lamp. "It's not a message, Richard. I--I did not know that you were coming to Lauderdale to-night. Had I known it, I--Give my love, my dear love, to Cousin Margaret. I would have come to Three Oaks, only--" "You are going home to-morrow?" "Yes. Fauquier wishes to get back to Albemarle--" "Will you start from Lauderdale?" "No, from Silver Hill. He will come by for me. But had I known," said Judith clearly, "had I known that you would ride to Lauderdale to-night--" "You would dutifully have stayed to see a cousin," thought Cleave in savage pain. He spoke quietly, in the controlled but vibrant voice he had used on the hilltop. "I am sorry that I will not see you to-night. I will ride on, however, and talk to Fauquier. You will give my love, will you not, to all my cousins at Greenwood? I do not forget how good all were to me last summer!--Good-bye, Judith." She gave him her hand. It trembled a little in her glove. "Come again to Greenwood! Winter or summer, it will be glad to see you!--Good-bye, Richard." Fur cap, cloak, beautiful face, drew back. "Go on, Ephraim!" said the mistress of Silver Hill. The slow grey horses put themselves into motion, the coach passed on. Maury Stafford waited until Cleave had remounted. "It has been an exciting day!" he said. "I think that we are at the parting of the ways." "I think so. You will be at Silver Hill throughout the week?" "No, I think that I, too, will ride toward Albemarle to-morrow. It is worth something to be with Fauquier Cary a little longer."