"And I nearly did, Mr. Jefferson!" broke out Meriwether Lewis. "Do not praise me too much. I was tempted----"
The old man turned toward him, his face grave.
"You are honest! I value that above all in you--you are punctilious to have no praise not honestly won. Listen, now!" He leaned toward the young man, who sat beside him. "I know--I knew all along--how you were tempted. She came here--Theodosia--the very day you left!"
Lewis nodded, mute.
"In some way, I knew, the conspirators fought against your success and mine. I knew what agencies they intended to use against you--it was this woman! Had you failed, I should have known why. I know many things, whether or not you do. I know the character of Aaron Burr well enough. He has been crazed, carried away by his own ambitions--God alone knows where he would have stopped. He has been a man not surpassed in duplicity. He would stop at nothing. Moreover, he could make black look white. He did so for his daughter. She believed in him absolutely. And knowing somewhat of his plans, I imagined that he would use the attraction of that young lady for you--the power which, all things considered, she might be supposed to possess with you. I knew the depth of your regard for her, the deeper for its hopelessness. And more than all, I knew the intentness and resolution of your character. It was one motive against the other! Which was the stronger? You were a young man--the hot blood of youth was yours, and I know its power. Had the woman not been married, I should have lost! You would have sold a crown for her. It was honor saved you--your personal honor--that was what brought us success. No country is bigger than the personal honor of its gentlemen."
The bowed head of Meriwether Lewis was his only answer. The keen-faced old man went on: "I knew that before you had left the mouth of the Ohio River he would do his best to stop you--I knew it before you had left Harper's Ferry; but I placed the issue in the lap of the gods. I applied to you all the tests--the severest tests--that one man can to another. I let you alone! For a year, two years, three years, I did not know. But now I do know; and the answer is yonder flag which you have carried from one ocean to the other. The answer is in this map, all these hides scrawled in coal--all those new thousands of miles of land--our land. God keep it safe for us always! And may the people one day know who really secured it for them! It was not so much Thomas Jefferson as it was Meriwether Lewis.