The song came to an end, but after a moment Jacqueline sang again, sonorous and passionate words of a lover to his mistress.  It was not now the Cavalier hymning of constancy; it was the Elizabethan breathing passion, and his cry was the more potent.

     “The thirst that from the soul doth rise
       Doth ask a drink divine”—­

Blinding lightning, followed by a tremendous crash, startled the singer from her harp and brought all in the room to their feet.  “That struck!” exclaimed the Colonel.  “Look out, Fairfax, and see if ’t was the stables!  I hear the dogs howling.

“’Twas the big pine by the gate, I think, sir,” answered Fairfax Cary, half in and half out of the window.  “Gad! it is black!”

“You two cannot go home to-night,” cried Colonel Churchill, with satisfaction.  “And here’s Cato with the decanters!  We might have a hand at Loo—­eh, Unity? you and Fairfax, Ned Hunter and I.—­The card-table, Cato!”

The four sat down, the card-table being so placed as to quite divide Jacqueline and Ludwell Cary, at the harp, from Major Edward’s small table and Rand beside the sofa.  “Edward!” said the Colonel.  His brother nodded, gathered up his cards, and turned squarely to the entertainment of the Republican.  “So, Mr. Rand, Mr. Monroe goes to Spain!  What the Devil is he going to do there?  I wish that your party, sir, would send Mr. Madison to Turkey and Colonel Burr to the Barbary States!  And what, may I ask, are you going to do with the Mississippi now that you’ve got it?  It’s a damned expensive business buying from Buonaparte.  Sixty millions for a casus belli!  That’s what you have paid, and that’s what you have acquired, sir!”

“I don’t think you can be certain that it’s a casus belli, sir—­”

“Sir,” retorted the Major, “I may not know much, but what I know, I know damned well!  You cry peace, but there’ll be no peace.  There’ll be war, sir, war, war, war!”

Unity glanced from the card-table.  “Sing again, Jacqueline, do!  Sing something peaceful,” and Jacqueline, still with a colour and with shining eyes, laughed, struck a sounding chord, and in her noble contralto sang Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE GARDEN

In the forenoon of the next day Rand closed, for the second time that morning, the door of the blue room behind him, descended the stairs, and, passing through the quiet house, went out into the flower garden.  He was going away that afternoon.  Breakfast had been taken in his own room, but afterward, with some dubitation, he had gone downstairs.  There Colonel Churchill met him heartily enough, but presently business with his overseer had taken the Colonel away.  Rand found himself cornered by Major Edward and drawn into a discussion of the impeachment of Judge Chase.  Rand could be moved to the blackest rage, but he had