once included in that term. I looked for you in
Washington, and I looked in vain."

"You make it hard for me," said Rand, with lowered eyes. "I had no
explanation to give."

"When you neither came nor wrote, I assumed as much. It was in April
that you returned to Albemarle. Since then I have myself been twice in
the county."

"We have met--"

"But never alone. Had you forgotten the Monticello road? After the
Three-Notched Road, I should have thought it best known to you."

"I have not forgotten it, sir. But I might doubt my welcome here."

"You might well doubt it," answered the other sternly. "But had there
been humility in your heart--ay, or common remembrance!--that doubt
would not have kept you back. When I saw at last that you would not
come, I--"

He paused, took from the table a book and turned its leaves, then closed
and laid it down again. "I whistled you down the wind," he said.

There was a silence, then, far away in the hot night, a dog howled. The
hall clock struck the hour. Rand drew his breath sharply and turned in
his chair. "And you brought me here to-night to tell me so?"

"I will answer that presently. In these three years you have made
yourself a great name in Virginia; and now your party--It is still your
party?"

"It is still my party."

"Your party wishes to make you Governor. You have travelled fast and
far since the days when you walked with your father! Yesterday I was
astounded to hear that you had refused the nomination."

"Why should you be 'astounded'?"

"Because I hold you for a most ambitious man, and this is the plain, the
apparent step in your fortunes. At what goal are you aiming?"

"I did not want the governorship, sir."

"Then you want a greater thing. What it is--what it is"--With a sudden
movement he rested his elbow on the table and regarded Rand from under
the shelter of his hand. "And so," he said at last, in an altered
voice,--"and so you will not be Governor. Well, it is an honourable
post. This is late August, and in November you return to Richmond--"

"I go first across the mountains to examine a tract of land I have
bought."

"Indeed? When do you go?"

"I have not altogether decided."

"Will you take Mrs. Rand with you?"

"I think so. Yes."

"It is," said Mr. Jefferson, "a rough journey and a wild country for a
lady."

As he spoke he rose, and, going to a small table, poured for himself a
little wine in a glass and drank it slowly, then, putti