There was more, but she did not read it. She gave a small whimper like a frightened child. She uttered no other sound, but sat rigid holding the newspaper and staring out the window into the gathering dusk.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

AARON spent four years in exile, years of diminishing hope and ever more stringent poverty. The first fair promises of the great in England faded into evasions, into boredom, and then into suspicion. In the end it became necessary for Lord Liverpool to write a bland note, the purport of which was that Colonel Burr's presence in England had unfortunately become embarrassing to the Government. He might have passports and free passage to any port he wished, but he must avail himself of them.

So Aaron tried Sweden, then Germany and Paris. He ingratiated himself with many, he pursued several desultory love affairs, and he oscillated between a giddy social life and actual hunger when the sale of his watch or of some coins he had bought as a present for Gampy saved him from starvation. But the plans for 'X' were at a standstill. Indeed, in Europe, except for the initial interest of some English noblemen, they never began.

When Aaron reached Paris, he made many abortive efforts to gain audience with the King of Westphalia. The former Jerome Bonaparte ignored him, no less completely than did his imperial brother. Aaron kept up his spirits as best he could. He wrote Theo determinedly cheerful letters that hid his disappointment. He kept a journal which she should see some day and laugh over, when they were together once more. He was outwardly cheerful, but his health, for the first time in his life, was poor, and he longed for home. He was, moreover, worried about Theodosia.

There had been a silence of many months in the winter of 1809, and though, when he finally received a letter, she wrote in her usual vein, telling him of her efforts to insure his reinstatement, telling him news of Gampy, telling him how desperately she missed him, yet there was a note that disturbed him. She had abandoned their carefully maintained playfulness, their fiction that all was well with him. She implored him to come home.

Risk anything, make any sacrifice, but come home. Or, if the worst comes to the worst, I will leave everything to suffer with you. The icy hand of disappointment falls upon my heart to smother every spark. Do not frown at these complaints. Oh, my guardian angel, why were you obliged to abandon me? How much I need your counsel and tenderness...

Aaron read these letters anxiously, puzzled by their extravagance. He knew that her health was none too good, but he felt in her a despair that went deeper than physical discomfort: a profound unhappiness for which he knew no source.