is dead, and Mr. Madison is dead, and
Mr. Monroe is dead, and then, if the world is yet Republican, become
President? The governorship I do not want; the presidency is but a
chance, and half a lifetime off! But this--this, Jacqueline, is real and
at hand. Say that I go, say that I gain a throne where you and I may sit
and rule, wise and great and sovereign, holding kingdoms for our
children--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Jacqueline.

Rand drew her to him. "Don't fear--don't fear! The child will come--we
want him so!"

"Promise me," she cried,--"promise me that you will see Colonel Burr no
more, write to him no more! Promise me that you will put all this away,
forever, forever! Oh, Lewis, give me your word!"

"I will do nothing rash," he said. "We will go back to Roselands,--we
will watch and wait awhile. Burr himself does not go West until the
summer. Ere then I will persuade you. That first July evening, under the
mimosa at the gate, even then this thing was vaguely, vaguely in my
mind."

"Was it?" she cried. "Oh me, oh me!"

"You are wearied," he said, "chilled and trembling. I wish that Ludwell
Cary had aired his views elsewhere to-night! Put it all from your mind
and come to rest--"

"Lewis, if ever you loved me--if ever you said that you would give me
proof--"

"You know that I love you."

"Then, as I gave up friends and home for you, give up this thing for me!
No, no, I'll not cease to beg"--She slipped from his arm to her knees.
"Lewis, Lewis, this is not the road--this is not the way to freedom,
goodness, happiness Promise me! Oh, Lewis, if ever you loved me, promise
me!"

From Rand's house on Shockoe Hill Ludwell Cary walked quickly homeward
to the Eagle, where he and his brother lodged. As he walked he thought
at first, hotly and bitterly enough, of Lewis Rand and painfully of
himself, but at length the solemnity of the white night and the high
glitter of the stars made him impatient of his own mood. He looked at
the stars, and at the ivory and black of the tall trees, and his mind
calmed itself and turned to think of Jacqueline.

In the Eagle's best bedroom, before a blazing fire and a bottle of port,
he found Fairfax Cary deep in a winged chair and a volume of Fielding.
"Well, Fair?" he said, with his arm upon the mantel-shelf and his booted
foot upon the fender.

The younger Cary closed his book and hospitably poured wine for his
brother. "Were you at the Amblers'?" he asked. "It's a night for one's