read to me what my uncle had to say of the man who was at that instant beneath my roof, engaged in talk with my husband!  You read, and then you, too, took up the tale!  ’Traitor—­treason....  A man whom, had you the power, you would arrest at once....  False to his honour, false to his country....  Traitor and maker of traitors....  And where is your husband to-night?’ Well, I did not choose to tell you where was my husband that night—­and, since I was frightened, and cold at heart, and knew not what to say, and—­and was frightened, I lied to you!  But as for that which I now see that you have thought of me—­you are much mistaken there!  Until you read me Uncle Edward’s letter, I did not know what men said of Aaron Burr!”

“I wronged you,” said Cary, with emotion.  “I doubted you, and I have been most wretched in the doubting.  Forgive me!”

“You wronged me, yes!” she cried.  “But am I the only one you’ve wronged?  Oh, I see, I see what since that night you have thought of Lewis!  It was the next day that you quarrelled in the coffee house!  Oh, all these months, have you been mistrusting Lewis Rand, believing him concerned with that man, suspecting him of—­of—­of treason?  There, too, you are mistaken.  Listen!”

She came closer to him, all colour, light, and fire against the dark cedars.  “I am going to tell you.  You are generous, open-minded, candid, fair—­you will understand, and you will know him better, and you and he may yet be friends!  I have that at heart—­you would hardly believe how much I have that at heart.  Have you been dreaming of Lewis Rand as the aider and abetter of Colonel Burr’s designs, whatever they may be! as a conspirator with him against the peace of the country, against Virginia, against the Republic?  You have, you have,—­I read it in your face!  Well, you are wrong.  Oh, I will tell you the clean truth!  He was tempted—­he saw below him the kingdoms of the earth—­and oh, remember that around him are not the friendly arms, the old things, the counsel of the past, the watchword in the blood, the voice that cries to you or to my uncles and so surely points to you the road!  I will tell the whole truth.  I will not say that his mind sees always by the light by which we rest.  He has come another way and through another world.  How should he think our thoughts, see just with our eyes?  He has come through night and hurrying clouds; his way has been steep, and there are stains upon his nature.  I that love him will not deny them!  He was tempted as Ludwell Cary would not have been.  Oh, perhaps if I had not been there, he would have made his compact.  But I was there! and I besought him—­and that night he swore to me—­”

Cary threw out his arm with a cry.  “Stop, stop!  I take God to witness that I never thought of this!”

She went on, unheeding.  “He swore to me that whatever in that world of his he had thought of Aaron Burr and of his projects, however keenly he had seen the dazzling fortune that lay in that western country, yet, as I had left my world for his, so would he leave that night, in this, his world for mine!  And he did so—­he did so that night before the dawn!”