“Lewis, Lewis!”

He rose, crossed the shadowy space between them, and took her hands.  “Don’t fear—­don’t fear!  We two will always love.  Jacqueline, there is that within me that will not rest, that cries for power, and that overrides obstacles!  See what I have overridden since the days beneath the apple tree!  I am not idly dreaming.  Conditions such as exist to-day will not arise again.  Upon this continent it is the time of times for the bold—­the wisely bold.  This that beckons is no mirage in the West; it is palpable fact.  Say that I follow Burr—­follow! overtake and pass him!  He has a tarnished name and fifty years,—­a supple rapier but a shrunken arm.  He’s daring; but I can be that and more.  He plans; I can achieve.  I am no dreamer and no braggart when I say that in the West I can play the Corsican.  What can I do here?  Become, perhaps, Governor of Virginia; wait until Mr. Jefferson is dead, and Mr. Madison is dead, and Mr. Monroe is dead, and then, if the world is yet Republican, become President?  The governorship I do not want; the presidency is but a chance, and half a lifetime off!  But this—­this, Jacqueline, is real and at hand.  Say that I go, say that I gain a throne where you and I may sit and rule, wise and great and sovereign, holding kingdoms for our children—­”

“Oh!” exclaimed Jacqueline.

Rand drew her to him.  “Don’t fear—­don’t fear!  The child will come—­we want him so!”

“Promise me,” she cried,—­“promise me that you will see Colonel Burr no more, write to him no more!  Promise me that you will put all this away, forever, forever!  Oh, Lewis, give me your word!”

“I will do nothing rash,” he said.  “We will go back to Roselands,—­we will watch and wait awhile.  Burr himself does not go West until the summer.  Ere then I will persuade you.  That first July evening, under the mimosa at the gate, even then this thing was vaguely, vaguely in my mind.”

“Was it?” she cried.  “Oh me, oh me!”

“You are wearied,” he said, “chilled and trembling.  I wish that Ludwell Cary had aired his views elsewhere to-night!  Put it all from your mind and come to rest—­”

“Lewis, if ever you loved me—­if ever you said that you would give me proof—­”

“You know that I love you.”

“Then, as I gave up friends and home for you, give up this thing for me!  No, no, I’ll not cease to beg”—­She slipped from his arm to her knees.  “Lewis, Lewis, this is not the road—­this is not the way to freedom, goodness, happiness Promise me!  Oh, Lewis, if ever you loved me, promise me!”

From Rand’s house on Shockoe Hill Ludwell Cary walked quickly homeward to the Eagle, where he and his brother lodged.  As he walked he thought at first, hotly and bitterly enough, of Lewis Rand and painfully of himself, but at length the solemnity of the white night and the high glitter of the stars made him impatient of his own mood.  He looked at the stars, and at the ivory and black of the tall trees, and his mind calmed itself and turned to think of Jacqueline.