Upstairs, in the low “best room,” Rand found his wife still seated by the open window, her folded arms upon the sill, her eyes raised to the stars that shone despite the moon.  He crossed to her and closed the window.  “The night is cold.  Dearest, have you been sitting here all this time?”

She rose, turning upon him a radiant face.  “All this time.  I was not cold.  I was warm.  I am so happy that I’m frightened.”

“Did you like it?” he asked.  “I hoped that you would.  I thought of you—­my star, my happiness!”

“I used to wonder,” she said; “when they would come home to Fontenoy and say, ‘Lewis Rand spoke to-day,’ I used to wonder if I should ever hear you speak!  And when they blamed you I said to my aching heart, ’They need not tell me!  He’s not ambitious, self-seeking, a leveller, a demagogue and Jacobin!-he is the man I met beneath the apple tree!’ And I was right—­I was right!”

“Am I that man?” he asked.  “I will try to be, Jacqueline.  Leveller, demagogue, and Jacobin I am not; but for the rest, who knows—­who knows?  Men are cloudy worlds—­and I dream sometimes of a Pursuer.”

The next morning the skies had changed, and Rand and Jacqueline fared forward through a sodden, grey, and windy day.  The rain had ceased to fall when at twilight they came into Richmond by the Broad Street Road.  Lights gleamed from the wet houses; high overhead grey clouds were parting, and in the west was a line of red.  The wind was high, and the sycamores with which the town abounded rocked their speckled arms.  The river was swollen and rolled hoarsely over the rocks beneath the red west.  Rand had taken a house on Shockoe Hill, not far from the Chief Justice’s, and to this he and Jacqueline came through the wet and windy freshness of the night.  Smiling in the doorway were the servants—­Joab and Mammy Chloe and Hannah—­who had set out from Albemarle the day before their master and mistress.  Rand and Jacqueline, leaving the mud-splashed chaise, were welcomed with loquacity and ushered into a cheerful room where there was a crackling fire and a loaded table.

“Mrs. Leigh’s compliments, Miss Jacqueline, an’ she done sont de rolls.  Mrs. Fisher’s best wishes, an’ she moughty glad to hab a neighbour, an’ she done sont de broiled chicken.  An’ Mr. Hay, he done sont de oysters wid he compliments—­an’ de two bottles Madeira Mr. Ritchie sont—­an’ Mr. Randolph lef’ de birds, an’ he gwine come roun’ fust thing in de mawnin’—­”

“We shall have friends,” said Rand.  “I am glad for you, sweetheart.  But I wish that one Federalist had had the grace to remember that Jacqueline Churchill came to town to-day.”

“Ah, once I would have cared,” answered Jacqueline.  “It does not matter now.”

“There’s a tear on your hand—­”

Jacqueline laughed.  “At least, it doesn’t matter much.—­Is that all, Joab?”

“An’ Marse Ludwell Cary, he ride erroun in de rain an’ leave he compliments for Marse Lewis, an’ he say will Miss Jacqueline ’cept dese yer flowers—­”