the
heart is wavering. They always answer--they come down the street at
night, between the box bushes, up the steps beneath the honeysuckle--on
such an errand they would not fear the lion's den! They are magnanimous,
they are generous, they are out of our old life, they can tell us what
we ought to do!" He struck the ash-stick violently against the hearth.
"Honeysuckle and box and the quiet of the night, and 'Yes, I knew, I
knew. 'Twas thus and so, and I would counsel you--' Oh, world's end and
hell-fire! forgiveness itself grows worthless on such terms!"

He threw the stick from him, rose abruptly, and walked to the window.

"The clouds pile up, but they do not break, and the heat and fever of
this August air grow intolerable. To abstract the mind--to abstract the
mind"--He stood listening to the locusts and all the indefinable hum of
the downward-drawing afternoon, then turned to Tom. "Give me those
Winchester papers. Now what, exactly, did you do in Williamsburgh?"

CHAPTER XXIX

THE RIVER ROAD

The days of speeches, for the Government and for Aaron Burr,--Hay, Wirt,
and McRae against Edmund Randolph, Wickham, Botts, Lee, and Luther
Martin,--went crackling by with bursts of heavy artillery and with
running fire of musketry. It was a day of orators, and eloquence was
spilled like water. At last the case rested. The Chief Justice summed
up, exhaustively, with extraordinary ability, and with all the
impartiality humanly possible to a Federalist Chief Justice dealing with
a Republican prosecution. The jury, as is known, brought in a Scotch
verdict, whereupon the prisoner was immediately upon his feet with a
vehement protest. Finally the "Not proven" was expunged from the record,
and Aaron Burr stood "Acquitted." The famous trial for treason was over.

As, throughout the summer, all roads led to Richmond, now, in the fierce
heat and dust of early autumn, there was an exodus which left the town
extremely dull after all the stir and fascination of the Government's
proceedings. Burr, indeed, discharged for treason, was still held in
bail to answer for the misdemeanor, judges and lawyers were still
occupied, and many witnesses yet detained. But the result of the matter
was a foregone conclusion. Here, too, there would be a "Not proven,"
with a demand on the part of the accused for a "Not guilty," and a final
direction by the judges to the jury to return a verdict in the usual
form. The trial of a man for a misde