Rand came back to the hearth, took the armchair in which Cary had sat, and drew it closer to the glowing embers.

"Come," he said.

"Come, Jacqueline, let us look at the pictures in the fire." She knelt beside him on the braided rug.

"Show me true pictures! Home in Virginia, and honourable life, and noble service, and my King a King indeed, and this Colonel Burr gone like a shadow and an ugly dream!--that is the picture I want to see." For a moment there was silence before the white ash and the dying heart of the wood, then Rand with the tongs squared a flaky bed and drew from top to bottom a jagged line.

"This," he said, "is the great artery; this is the Mississippi River." He drew another line.