“I see—­I see!”

“When at last I perceived, though I could not guess the reason, that she wished to be alone, I bade her good-night, and she watched me—­oh, carefully!—­through the hall and past the other doors and out of the house.  I came home through the starlight and over the snow to the Eagle.  I found you there by the fire, and you told me that Aaron Burr was in Richmond.  Then, then, Fair, I knew.  I knew with whom Lewis Rand was engaged, I knew who was the client from the country!  The next morning I made my inquiries.  Burr had gone at dawn, muffled and secret and swift—­one man to see him off.  That man, I learned to-day, was Adam Gaudylock.  He, too, was at Rand’s the night before.  A triumvirate, was it not?  Well, she knew, she knew—­and women, too, have dreamed of crowns!”

He rose.  “I’m going to ride to Fontenoy.  You can bear me witness that I’ve kept away since her return.  Now I shall keep away no longer.  I will speak to Major Edward.  Her family may draw a circle out of which she may not step.”

“There’s been,” said the other, “no true reconciliation.  She’s only at Fontenoy because the Churchills could not refuse a dying woman.  They speak to her as to a stranger to whom, as gentlemen, they must needs be courteous.  And she’s proud, too.  Unity says they are far apart.”

“I know.  But though the Churchill men are stubborn, they are Virginians and they are patriots.  This touches their honour and the honour of their house.  If Rand plots at all, he’s plotting treason.  How much does she know, how little does she not know?  God knows, not I!  But they may make a circle she cannot overstep—­no, not for all the magician’s piping!” He rested his forehead upon his clasped hands.  “Fair, Fair, she was my Destiny!  Why did he come like a shape of night, with the power of night?  And now he draws her, too, into the shadow.  He’s treading a road beset—­and they are one flesh; she travels with him.  Oh, despair!”

“Have out a warrant against him.”

“What proofs? and what disgrace if proved!  No, Fair, no.”

“Then let me challenge him.”

The other smiled.  “Should it come to that, I will be the challenger!  I am your senior there.  Don’t forget it, Fair.”  He rose from the table.  “Do you remember that first day we rode to Fontenoy when I came home from England?  The place was all in sunshine, all fine gold.  She was standing on the porch beside Major Edward; she lifted her hand and shaded her eyes with a fan—­there was a flower in her hair.  Three years!  I am worn with those three years.”  For a moment he rested his hand on the other’s shoulder.  “Fair, Fair, you know happy love—­may you never know unhappy love!  I am going now to Fontenoy.  Is there a message for Unity?”

CHAPTER XXI

THE CEDAR WOOD

Jacqueline closed the door of her aunt’s chamber softly behind her, passed through the Fontenoy hall, and came out upon the wide porch.  There, in the peace of the September afternoon, she found Unity alone with the Lay of the Last Minstrel.  “Aunt Nancy is asleep,” she said.  “I left Mammy Chloe beside her.  Unity, I think she’s better.”