Only--remember me as long as you can, Meriwether Lewis."
She spoke softly, and the color of her cheek, still rising, told of her self-reproof.
He turned suddenly at this, a wonderfully sweet smile now upon his face.
"As long as I can?"
"Yes. Let your own mind run on the ambitions of a proud man, a strong man. Ambition--power--place--these things will all be yours in the coming years. They belong to any man of ability such as yours, and I covet them for you. I shall pray always for your success; but success makes men forget."
He still sat looking at her unmoved, with thoughts in his heart that he would not have cared to let her know. She went on still, half tremblingly:
"I want to see you happy after a time--with some good woman at your side--your children by you--in your own home. I want everything for you which ought to come to any man. And yet I know how hard it is to alter your resolve, once formed. Captain Lewis, you are a stubborn man, a hard man!"
He shook his head.
"Yes, I do not seem to change," said he simply. "I hope I shall be able to carry my burden and to hold my trail."
"Fie! I will not have such talk on a morning like this."
Fearlessly she reached out her hand to his, which lay upon the table.
She smiled at him, but he looked down, the lean fingers of his own hand not trembling nor responding.
If she sensed the rigidity of the muscles which held his fingers outward, at least she feared it not. If she felt the repression which kept him silent, at least she feared it not. Her intuitions told her at last that the danger was gone. His hand did not close on hers.
She raised her cup and saluted laughingly.
"A good journey, Meriwether Lewis," said she, "and a happy return from it! Cast away such melancholy--you will forget all this!"
"I ask you not to wound me more than need be. I am hard to die. I can carry many wounds, but they may pain me none the less."
"Forgive me, then," she said, and once more her small hand reached out toward him. "I would not wound you. I asked you only to remember me as----"
"As----"
"As I shall you, of course. And I remember that bright day when you came to me--yonder in New York. You offered me all that any man can ever offer any woman. I am proud of that! I told my husband, yes. He never mentions your name save in seriousness and respect. I am ambitious for you. All the Burrs are full of ambition, and I am a Burr, as you know. How long will it be before you come back to higher office and higher place? Will it be six months hence?"
"More likely six years. If there is healing for me, the wilderness alone must give it."
"I shall be an old woman--old and sallow from the Carolina suns. You will have forgotten me then."
"It is enough," said he. "You have lightened my burden for me as much as may be--you have made the trial as easy as any can. The rest is for me. At least I can go feeling that I have not wronged you in any way."
"Yes, Meriwether Lewis," said she quietly, "there has not been one word or act of yours to cause you regret, or me. You have put no secret on me that I must keep. That was like a man! I trust you will find it easy to forget me."
He raised a hand.
"I said, madam, that I am hard to die. I asked you not to wound me overmuch. Do not talk to me of hopes or sympathy. I do not ask--I will not have it! Only this remains to comfort me--if I had laid on my soul the memory of one secret that I had dared to place on yours, ah, then, how wretched would life be for me forever after! That thought, it seems to me, I could not endure."
"Go, then, my savage gentleman, and let me----"
"And let you never see my face again?"
She rose and stood looking at him, her own eyes wet with a sudden moisture.
"Women worth loving are so few!" she said slowly. "Clean men are so few! How a woman could have loved you, Meriwether Lewis! How some woman ought to love you! Yes, go now," she concluded. "Yes, go!"
"Mrs. Alston will wait with you here for a few moments," said Meriwether Lewis to the miller"s wife quietly. He stood with his bridle rein across his arm. "See that she is very comfortable. She might have a second cup of your good coffee?"
He swung into his saddle, reined his horse about, turned and bowed formally to his late _vis-a-vis_, who still remained seated at the table. Then he was off at such speed as left Arcturus no more cause to fret at his bridle rein.
CHAPTER III
MR. BURR AND MR. MERRY
The young Virginian had well-nigh made his way out over the two miles or so of sheltered roadway, when he heard hoof beats on ahead, and slackened his own speed. He saw two hors.e.m.e.n approaching, both well mounted, coming on at a handsome gait.
Of these, one was a stout and elderly man of no special shape at all, who sat his horse with small grace, his florid face redder for his exercise, his cheeks mottled with good living and hard riding. He was clad in scrupulous riding costume, and seemed, indeed, a person of some importance. The badge of some order or society showed on his breast, and his entire air--intent as he was upon his present business of keeping company with a skilled horseman--marked him as one accustomed to attention from others. A servant in the costume of an English groom rode at a short distance behind him.
The second man was lighter, straight and trim of figure, with an erectness and exactness of carriage which marked him as a soldier at some part of his life. He was clad with extreme neatness, well booted also, and sat his mount with the nonchalance of the trained horseman.
His own garb and face showed not the slightest proof that he had been riding hard.
Indeed, he seemed one whom no condition or circ.u.mstance could deprive of a cool immaculateness. He was a man to be marked in any company--especially so by the peculiar brilliance of his full, dark eye, which had a piercing, searching glint of its own; an eye such as few men have owned, and under whose spell man or woman might easily melt to acquiescence with the owner"s mind.
He sat his horse with a certain haughtiness as well as carelessness.
His chin seemed long and firm, and his lofty forehead--indeed, his whole air and carriage--discovered him the man of ambition that he really was. For this was no other than Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States, whose name was soon to be on the lips of all. He had lately come to Washington with the Jefferson administration.
This gentleman now reined up his horse as he caught sight of the young man approaching. His older companion also halted. Burr raised his hat.
"Ah, Captain Lewis!" he said in a voice of extraordinary sweetness, yet of power. "You also have caught the secret of this climate, eh?
You ride in the early morning--I do not wonder. You are Virginian, and so know the heats of Washington. I fancy you recognize Mr. Merry," he added, his glance turning from one to the other.
The young Virginian bowed to both gentlemen.
"I have persuaded his excellency the minister from Great Britain to ride with us on one of our Washington mornings. He has been good enough to say--to say--that he enjoys it!"
Burr turned a quick glance upon the heavier figure at his side, with a half smile of badinage on his own face. Lewis bowed again, formally, and Anthony Merry answered with equal politeness and ceremony.
"Yes," said the envoy, "to be sure I recall the young man. I met him in the anteroom at the President"s house."
Meriwether Lewis cast him a quick glance, but made no answer. He knew well enough the slighting estimate in which everything at Washington was held by this minister accredited to our government. Also he knew, as he might have said, something about the diplomat"s visit at the Executive Mansion. For thus far the minister from Great Britain to Washington had not been able to see the President of the United States.
"And you are done your ride?" said Burr quickly, for his was a keen nose to scent any complication. "Tell me"--he lifted his own reins now to proceed--"you saw nothing of my daughter, Mrs. Alston? We missed her at the house, and have feared her abduction by some bold young Virginian, eh?"
His keen eye rested fairly on the face of the younger man as he spoke.
The latter felt the challenge under the half mocking words.