Capitol and Broad to Marshall Street. Unity was to
take supper with Mrs. Carrington and to spend the night with Mrs.
Ambler, and she would not go home first, unless--She looked at
Jacqueline. "Did the fireworks frighten you, honey? Would you rather
that I stayed with you?"

Jacqueline laughed. "The fireworks were alarming, weren't they, Mrs.
Wickham? No, no; go with Mrs. Carrington, Unity. To-night I'm going to
write to Deb and read a novel." They were now opposite the Chief
Justice's house, and as she spoke, she paused and made a slight curtsy
to the elder ladies. "Our ways part here."

"I will walk with you to your door," said Fairfax Cary.

She shook her head. "No, do not. I am almost there." Then, as his
intention still held, she continued in a lower voice, "I had rather be
alone. Obey me, please."

The small discussion ended in the group of ladies and their two escorts
giving Jacqueline Rand her way, and with laughing good-byes keeping to
their course down the street that was now bathed in the glow of sunset.
She watched them for a moment, then turned her face toward her own
house. The distance was short, and she traversed it lightly and rapidly,
glad to be alone, glad to feel upon her brow the sunset wind, and glad
at the prospect of her solitary evening. She was conscious of a strong
revulsion of feeling. The sights and the sounds of the past hours were
still in mind, but all the air had changed, and was no longer fevered
and boding. She had thought too much and made too much, she told
herself, of that vague and dark "It might have been." It was not; thank
God, it was not! And Lewis, there in Williamsburgh, walking now,
perhaps, down Duke of Gloucester Street, or sitting in the Apollo room
at the Raleigh,--would she have had Lewis read her mind that day?
Generous! had she been generous--or just? The colour flowed over her
face and throat. "Neither just nor generous!" she cried to herself, in a
passion of relief. "I'll go no more to that place!"

She reached her own gate, entered between the two box bushes, and
mounted the steps to the honeysuckle-covered porch. The door before her
was open, and the hall, wide and cool, with the tall clock and the long
sofa, the portraits on the wall and a great bowl of stock and
gillyflower, brought to her senses a blissful feeling of home, of
fixedness and peace.

Mammy Chloe came from the back of the house, and in her mistress's
chamber took from her her straw bonnet, g