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."