crack of his whip, put the greys in
motion.

The coach went slowly down the hill. Unity yawned and waved her fan. "I
like Captain Decatur. Think of sailing into a tropic harbour and
destroying the Philadelphia on a day like this! Lend me your fan; it is
larger than mine. What have you in your bag?"

"My prayer book, and something that Colonel Nicholas gave me for Lewis.
I could think only of Theodosia Alston, and of how long to-night will be
to her!"

"She believes that he will be acquitted."

"She does not know, and pictures of what we fear are dreadful! Knowledge
is like death sometimes, but not to know is like frightened dying! Oh,
warm, warm! I shall be glad when it is all over and we leave Richmond
for the mountains and the streams again, and for your wedding, dearest
heart!"

"Oh, my wedding!" said Unity. "My wedding's like a dream. I don't
believe I'm going to have any wedding!"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR

At an early hour the crowd in the Hall of the House of Delegates was
very great, and as it drew toward the time when the principals in the
drama would appear, the press of the people and the heat of the August
day grew well-nigh intolerable. In the gallery were many women, and
their diaphanous gowns and the incessant flutter of their fans imparted
to this portion of the Hall a pale illusion of comfort. In the hall
below, men stood upon the window-sills, choked the entrances, crowded
the corridors without. Not only was there a throng where something might
be heard and seen, but the portico of the Capitol had its numbers, and
the green surrounding slopes a concourse avid of what news the birds
might bring. Within and without, the heat was extreme, even for August
in Tidewater Virginia; an atmosphere sultry and boding, tense with the
feeling of an approaching storm.

In the gallery, beside Unity and Mrs. Wickham, around her women of
Federalist families who were loath to believe any one guilty who was
prosecuted, or persecuted, by the present Government, and women of
Republican houses who asserted, while they waved their fans, that, being
guilty, Aaron Burr must be, should be, would be hanged! sat Jacqueline
Rand, and wondered somewhat at her weakness in coming there that day. It
had been, perhaps, in the last analysis, a painful curiosity, a vague
desire to see the place, the men, all the circumstance and environment,
with which her husband--she thanked God with every breath--had n