fairness, knowing your
ambition, even-paced with mine, none the less I know your discretion
and your generosity as well. You see, I have chosen the best messenger
in all the world to advance my own ambition. Indeed, I have chosen
the only one in all the world who might undertake this errand with the
slightest prospect of success."

"What can I do, father?"

"In the morning that young man will start. It is now two by the clock.
We are late. He will start with the rising sun. It is doubtful if he
will see his bed at all tonight."

"You have called me for a strange errand, father," said Theodosia
Alston, at length. "So far as my brain grasps these things, I go with
you in your plans. I could plan no treachery against this country, nor
could you--you are its sworn servant, its high official."

"Treachery? No, it is statesmanship, it is service to mankind!"

"My consent to that, yes. But as to seeing Captain Lewis, there is, as
you know, but one way. I go not as Theodosia Burr, but as Mrs. Alston
of Carolina. I am a woman of honor; he is a man of honor. No argument
on earth would avail with him except such as might be based upon honor
and loyalty. Nor would any argument, even if offered by my father,
avail otherwise with me."

She turned upon him now the full gaze of her dark eyes, serious,
luminous, yet tender, her love for him showing so clearly that he came
to her softly, took her hands, caught her to his bosom, and kissed her
tenderly.

"Theodosia," said he, "aid me! If the fire of my ambition has consumed
me, I have come to you, because I know your love, because I know your
loyalty! I have not slept tonight," he added, passing a hand across
his forehead.

"There will be no more sleep for me tonight," was her reply.

"You will see him in the morning?"

"Yes."

CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTING

There were others in Washington who did not sleep that night. A light
burned until sunrise in the little office-room of Thomas Jefferson.
Spread upon his desk, covering its litter of unfinished business, lay
a large map--a map which today would cause any schoolboy to smile, but
which at that time represented the wisdom of the world regarding the
interior of the great North American continent. It had served to
afford anxious study for two men, these many hours.

"Yonder it lies, Captain Lewis!" said Mr. Jefferson at length. "How
vast, how little known! We know our climate and soil here. It is but
reasonable to s