come, say that I am engaged with a client, make my excuses, and as soon as possible get rid of him.  On no account—­on no account, Jacqueline, would I have it known that Aaron Burr is here to-night.  This is important.  I will keep the doors shut, and we will not speak loudly.”  He turned to go, then hesitated.  “On second thoughts, I will tell Joab to excuse us both at the door.  For you—­do not sit up, dear heart!  It will be late before our business is done.”

He was gone.  Jacqueline went back to the fire and, sitting down beneath the high mantel, opened the fifth volume of Clarissa Harlowe.  She read for a while, then closed the book, and with her chin in her hand fell to studying the ruddy hollows and the dropping coals.  Perhaps half an hour passed.  The door opened, and she looked up from her picture in the deep hollows to see Ludwell Cary smiling down upon her and holding out his hand.  “Perhaps I should have drifted past with the snow,” he said, “but the light in the window drew me, and I heard to-day from Fontenoy.  Mr. Rand, I know, is at home.”

“Yes,” answered Jacqueline, rising, “but he is much engaged to-night with—­with a friend.  Did Joab not tell you?”

“Mammy Chloe let me in.  I did not see Joab.  I am sorry—­”

He hesitated.  There came a blast of wind that rattled the boughs of the maple outside the window.  The fire leaped and the shadows danced in the corners of the room.  Jacqueline knew that it was cold outside—­her visitor’s coat was wet with snow.  Sitting there before the fire she had been lonely, and her heart was hungry for news from home.

“May I stay a few minutes?” asked Cary.  “I will read you what Major Edward says of Fontenoy.”

She was far from dreaming how little Rand would wish this visitor to know of his affairs that night.  Her knowledge extended no further than the fact that for some reason Colonel Burr did not wish it known that he was in Richmond.  She listened, but the walls were thick, and she heard no sound from the distant dining-room.  Cary would know only what she told him, and in a few minutes he would be gone.  “I should like to hear the letter,” she said, and motioned to the armchair beside the hearth.  He took it, and she seated herself opposite him, upon an old, embroidered tabouret.  Between them the fire of hickory logs burned softly; without the curtained windows the maple branches, moved by the wind, struck at intervals against the eaves.  Jacqueline faced the door.  It was her intention, should she hear steps, to rise and speak to Lewis in the hail without.

The letter which Cary drew from his breast pocket was from Major Churchill.  That he did not read it all was due to his correspondent’s choice of subjects and great plainness of speech; but he read what the Major had to say of Fontenoy, of the winter weather and the ailing slaves, of Mustapha, of county deaths and marriages, of the books he had been reading, and the men to whom he wrote.  Major Edward’s strain was ironic, fine, and very humanly lonely.  Jacqueline’s eyes filled with tears, and all the flames of the fire ran together like shaken jewels.