“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.