Jacqueline Rand and Unity Dandridge, the one in her customary white, the other in a blue that marvellously set off dark hair, dark eyes, and brilliant bloom, entered Saint John’s together and passed up the aisle to a seat halfway between door and pulpit.  By some miscalculation of Unity’s they were very early, a fact which presently brought a whispered ejaculation of annoyance from Miss Dandridge.  “I love a flutter when I come in and the knowledge that I’ve turned every head—­and here we’ve entered an empty church!  Heigho!  Nothing to do for half an hour.”

“Read your prayer book,” suggested Jacqueline.  “Oh! does it open just there as easily as all that?”

“It always did open just there,” answered Miss Dandridge.  “It’s something in the binding.  Heigho!  ‘Love, honour, and obey.’  Obey!”

“Your entrance,” said her cousin, “was not entirely unseen, and here comes one whose head is certainly turned.”

“Is it?” asked Unity, and hastily closed the prayer book as Fairfax Cary entered the pew behind them.

Jacqueline turned and greeted the young man with a smile.  There was now between Greenwood and Roselands, between the house on Shockoe Hill and the quarters of the Carys at the Swan, a profound breach, an almost utter division.  Lewis Rand and Ludwell Cary were private as well as political enemies, and all men knew as much.  There had been no attempt on the part of either to conceal the fact of the duel in November.  Their world of town and country surmised and conjectured, volubly or silently, according to company, drew its conclusions, and chose its colours.  The conclusions were largely false, for it occurred to no one—­at least outside of Fontenoy—­to connect the quarrel and the duel with the President’s proclamation and the Burr conspiracy.  During the past winter Cary had been much in Albemarle, little in Richmond, and the encounters of the two had not been frequent.  In the spring, however, matters had brought him to the city, and in the fever and excitement of the ensuing summer he and Rand were often thrown into company.  When this was the case, they spoke with a bare and cold civility, and left each other’s neighbourhood as soon as circumstances permitted.  Cary came, of course, no more to the house on Shockoe Hill.  Jacqueline, remaining in town through the summer because her husband remained, saw him now and again in some public place or gathering.  He bowed low and she inclined her head, but they did not speak.  Her heart was hot and pained.  She had pleaded that afternoon in the cedar wood for his better understanding of Lewis, and to what purpose?—­an open quarrel and a duel!  She did not want to speak; she wanted to forget him.