“I will do as the President directs, Colonel Nicholas, and will give it to my husband the moment he returns.”

She put out her hand, and he laid the packet in it.  Hanging from her arm by a rose-coloured ribbon was a small bag of old brocade.  This she opened, and slipped into the silken depths the President’s somewhat heavy missive.  “He shall have it on Wednesday,” she said.

The dispersing congregation touched and claimed them.  Mr. Wirt and Commodore Truxtun bore off her companion, and she herself, after a moment of gay talk with all the Randolphs, rejoined Unity and her court.  Fairfax Cary called their coach, and Captain Decatur and Mr. Irving and Mr. Scott saw them in, and still talked at the lowered windows until Big Isham on the box, with a loud crack of his whip, put the greys in motion.

The coach went slowly down the hill.  Unity yawned and waved her fan.  “I like Captain Decatur.  Think of sailing into a tropic harbour and destroying the Philadelphia on a day like this!  Lend me your fan; it is larger than mine.  What have you in your bag?”

“My prayer book, and something that Colonel Nicholas gave me for Lewis.  I could think only of Theodosia Alston, and of how long to-night will be to her!”

“She believes that he will be acquitted.”

“She does not know, and pictures of what we fear are dreadful!  Knowledge is like death sometimes, but not to know is like frightened dying!  Oh, warm, warm!  I shall be glad when it is all over and we leave Richmond for the mountains and the streams again, and for your wedding, dearest heart!”

“Oh, my wedding!” said Unity.  “My wedding’s like a dream.  I don’t believe I’m going to have any wedding!”

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TRIAL OF AARON BURR

At an early hour the crowd in the Hall of the House of Delegates was very great, and as it drew toward the time when the principals in the drama would appear, the press of the people and the heat of the August day grew well-nigh intolerable.  In the gallery were many women, and their diaphanous gowns and the incessant flutter of their fans imparted to this portion of the Hall a pale illusion of comfort.  In the hall below, men stood upon the window-sills, choked the entrances, crowded the corridors without.  Not only was there a throng where something might be heard and seen, but the portico of the Capitol had its numbers, and the green surrounding slopes a concourse avid of what news the birds might bring.  Within and without, the heat was extreme, even for August in Tidewater Virginia; an atmosphere sultry and boding, tense with the feeling of an approaching storm.