rial. Aaron Burr and his confederates intend an Empire. 'Tis said
there are five hundred men in his confidence here in the East, and that
the chief of these wait but for a signal from him or from
Wilkinson--whereupon they'll follow him and he'll make them dukes and
princes.

"Like Macbeth, he has done his murder and is on his way to be crowned at
Scone. He has not a wife, but he has a daughter ambitious as himself.
She has a son. He sees his line secured. He has suborned other murderers
and made traitors of honest men--and our Laputa philosopher at
Washington smiles and says there is nothing amiss!

"May I be gathered soon out of this cap-and-bells democracy to some
Walhalla where I may find Hamilton and General Washington and be at
peace! This world is growing wearisome to me.

"G. Morris speaks of the bulk of his news as report merely, but I'll
stake my head the report is true."

Cary ceased to read. Jacqueline sat motionless, and in the silence of
the room they heard the wind outside and the tapping of the maple
branches.

"If I were Mr. Jefferson," said Cary presently, "I would arrest Colonel
Burr this side of the Ohio. He has been West too often; he is in the
East now, and I would see to it that he remained here. But Mr. Jefferson
will temporize, and Burr will make his dash for a throne. Well! he is
neither Caesar nor Buonaparte; he is only Aaron Burr. He is the
adventurer, not the Emperor. The danger is that in all the motley he is
enlisting there may be a Buonaparte. Then farewell to this poor schemer
and any delusions he may yet nourish as to a peaceful, federated West!
War and brazen clamour and the yelling eagles of a conqueror!"

He spoke with conviction, but now, as though to lighten his own mood, he
laughed. "All this may not be so," he said. "It may be but a dream of
our over-peaceful night."

Jacqueline rose, motioned him with a smile to keep his seat, and, moving
to an escritoire standing near the door, wrote a line upon a sheet of
paper, then rang the bell and when Joab appeared, put the paper into his
hand. "Give this to your master," she said, and came back to Cary beside
the fire. She smiled, but he saw with concern that she was very pale,
and that the amethysts were trembling at her throat. "I should not have
read you this letter," he exclaimed. "It is over-caustic, over-bitter.
Do not let it trouble you. You have grown pale!"

She bent over the fire as if she were cold. "It is nothing. Yes