Mocket drew a long breath.  “Monday!  That’s soon, but the sooner, I reckon, the better.  Sometimes just any delay is fatal.  For all his singing, I know that Adam is anxious—­and he’s weatherwise, is Adam!  There’s something in the air.  The papers have begun to talk, and everywhere you turn there’s the same damned curiosity about Aaron Burr and New Orleans and Mexico and the Washita lands!  Moreover, when a man’s as quiet as Mr. Jefferson is just now, I suspect that man.  Best to get quite out of reach of a countermine.  You’ve gone too far not to go a deal farther.”

“Just so,” agreed the other.  “Many and many a league farther.  Now, this paper of directions.  I’ll go over it carefully with you, and then I’ll burn it.  First, as to Roselands, the stock, and the servants.  Joab and Isham go with us, starting on horseback an hour behind the chaise.”

“You take no maid for Mrs. Rand?”

“It cannot be managed.  When we reach this island, I can doubtless purchase a woman from Mr. Blennerhassett.”

“Mrs. Rand does not know yet, does she, Lewis?”

“She does not know.  She will not know until we are over the mountains and return is impossible.”  He turned from the fire, walked the room again, and spoke on as to himself.  “When I tell her, there will be my first battle, and the one battle that I dread!  But I’ll win it,—­I’ll win because I must win.  She will suffer at first, but I will make her forget,—­I will love her so that I will make her forget.  If all goes well and greatness is in our horoscope, she shall yet be friends with the crown upon her brow!  Yes, and gracious friends with all that she has left behind, and with her Virginian kindred!  When all’s won, and all’s at peace, and the clash and marvel an old tale, then shall her sister and her cousin visit her.”

He paused at the fireplace and stirred the logs with his foot.  “But that’s a vision of the morrow.  Between now and then, and here and there, it never fails that there’s an ambushed road.”  He stood a moment, staring at the leaping flames, then returned to the table.  “Back to business, Tom!  When Roselands is sold—­”

“Do you know,” suggested Tom, “I’ve been thinking that, now he is going to be married, a purchaser might be found in Fairfax Cary.”

“Fairfax Cary!” exclaimed the other, and drummed upon the table.  “No; they will not want it, those two.  Poor old Tom! your intuitions are not very fine, are they?”

“Well, I just thought he might,” said the underling.  “But he may live on at Greenwood with Ludwell Cary.”

Rand struck his foot against the floor.  “Don’t let us speak that name to-night!  I am weary of it.  It haunts me like a bell—­Ludwell Cary!  Ludwell Cary! And why it should haunt me, and why the thought of him always, for one moment, palsies my will and my arm, I know no more than you!  When I shake the dust of this county from my feet, it shall go hard but I will shake this obsession from my soul!  Somewhere, when this world was but a fiery cloud, all the particles of our being were whirled into collision.  Well, enough of that!  Whoever purchases Roselands, it will not be a Cary.  What’s the matter now?”