She shut her eyes and slow tears welled from under the lids. She shook her head impatiently. He hated tears. How dared she weep and despair! 'This is only a temporary setback,' she whispered to herself. 'He will extricate himself. They cannot do anything to him. He has done no wrong'. She repeated this over and over like an incantation.

When Eleanore later came out on the porch to tell her that le petit had had his supper and was calling for his mother, she found her mistress dry-eyed and calm, but she noted her pallor, traces of recent tears.

'Is there bad news, Madame?' she asked sympathetically.

Theo nodded slowly. 'Yes, bad news, but it is temporary. It shall be surmounted.'

The maid lingered, curious, offering, with the liberty of a valued servant, ' Monsieur Alston seems in a bad temper; he is shouting and bellowing like a mad bull.'

Theo shrugged, her lips parted in a faint, remote smile. 'Mr. Alston's behavior is a matter of complete indifference to me.'

Eleanore started. Mon Dieu, comme elle ressemble à son père! For in that moment she had seen Theo's gentle prettiness freeze into a brilliant hardness. The lift of her chin, the jeweled flash of her disdainful eyes, these were Colonel Burr.

'Monsieur Alston is, after all, no match for Madame,' said Eleanore to herself, astonished. 'Let him roar and hit about as he will'. This was a new idea to her. She had accepted Theo as a docile wife and daughter, except, of course, for that affair in Washington. But that had been simply une petite indiscrétion now far in the past, and never repeated. Madame lived like a nun, nor ever seemed aware of any admiration she might arouse.

Joseph softened his stand before Theo left for Richmond. He clung as long as he could to his authority. In public he violently repudiated any knowledge of the conspiracy and endeavored to maintain this pose in private as well. Yet Theo's icy indifference reduced him to misery. She had made preparations to take the mail coach from Georgetown, but on the night before her departure, he entered her room, scowling.

'I will not have you go by public conveyance. It is not fitting for an Alston,' he said roughly, as though it had been her idea. 'Pompey will drive you in the cabriolet.'

She was on her knees beside a small cowhide trunk that she was packing. 'Thank you, Joseph,' she said, with distant politeness.

He shifted his feet and cleared his throat. 'It's possible that I may join you later up there if I can arrange my affairs.'

She knew that this was for him a painful concession, and she had a faint impulse of pity. But she had not forgiven him.

' If you come as a supporter, if you come to help, I shall be pleased to see you'. She turned back to the trunk.