He went to the dining room hastily and poured out a glass of wine.  When he returned, Angelica, as he expected, was half lying in a chair, white and limp.

“Drink this,” he said, in the bright peremptory manner to which his children were accustomed.  “I think you are not strong enough yet to indulge in composition.  You have grown too fast, and creation needs a great deal of physical vigour.  Now run to bed, and forget that you can play a note.”

Angelica sipped the wine obediently, and bade him good night.  As she toiled up the stairs she prayed for the physical strength that would permit her to become the great musician of her ambitious dreams.  Her prayer was answered; the great strength came to her, and her music was the wonder of those who listened; but they were very few.

Hamilton went into his library, prepared to write until morning.  Bitterness and cosmic curiosity had vanished; he was the practical man, with a mass of affairs to arrange during the few days that were left to him.  But he did no work that night.  The door-knocker pounded loudly.  The servants had gone to bed.  He took a lamp, and unchained and unlocked the front door, wondering what the summons meant, for visitors in that lonely spot were rare after nightfall.  A woman stood in the heavy shade of the porch, and behind her was a carriage.  She wore a long thin pelisse; and the hood was drawn over her face.  Nevertheless, she hesitated but a moment.  She lifted her head with a motion of haughty defiance that Hamilton well remembered, and stepped forward.

“It is I, Hamilton,” she said.  “I have come to have a few words with you alone, and I shall not leave until—­”

“Come in, by all means,” said Hamilton, politely.  “You were imprudent to choose such a dark night, for the roads are dangerous.  When you return I will send a servant ahead of you with a lantern.”

He led the way to the library and closed the door behind them.  Madame Jumel threw off her cloak, and stood before him in the magnificence of cloth of gold and many diamonds.  Her neck blazed, and the glittering tower of her hair was a jewel garden.  She was one of the women for whom splendour of attire was conceived, and had always looked her best when in full regalia.  To-night she was the most superb creature that man had ever seen or dreamed of.  Even her great eyes looked like jewels, deep and burning as that blue jewel of the West Indies, the Caribbean Sea; but her lips and cheeks were like soft pink roses.  Hamilton had seen her many times since the day of parting, for she went constantly to the theatre, and had been invited to the larger receptions until her reckless Jacobinism had put the final touch to the disapproval of Federal dames; but he had never seen her in such beauty as she was to-night.  Eleven years had perfected this beauty, taken from it nothing.  He sighed, and the past rose for a moment; but it seemed a century behind him.