In the gallery, beside Unity and Mrs. Wickham, around her women of Federalist families who were loath to believe any one guilty who was prosecuted, or persecuted, by the present Government, and women of Republican houses who asserted, while they waved their fans, that, being guilty, Aaron Burr must be, should be, would be hanged! sat Jacqueline Rand, and wondered somewhat at her weakness in coming there that day.  It had been, perhaps, in the last analysis, a painful curiosity, a vague desire to see the place, the men, all the circumstance and environment, with which her husband—­she thanked God with every breath—­had no connection!  He might have had here his part, she knew tremulously; it might have been his role to stand here beside Aaron Burr, and, with a passionately humble and grateful heart, she nursed the memory of that winter night when he had sworn to her that from that hour he and this enterprise should be strangers.

There had been days and weeks of preliminaries to the actual trial for high treason, but she had not before been in this hall.  All her delicacy shrank from the thought of sitting here beside her husband, conscious of his consciousness that she knew all that might have been, and saw in fancy more prisoners at the bar than one.  No man would like that.  He had come often to the Capitol during the days of skirmishing prior to the general engagement; had he not done so, it would have been at once remarked.  She expressed no desire to accompany him, nor did he ever ask her to do so.  She was aware of the general surprise that he had no place among the Government counsel.  Whether or not such place had been offered to him, pressed upon him, she did not know, but she thought it possible that this was the case.  If so, he had refused as was right.  Acceptance, she knew, would have been impossible.

All through these months there had been between them a silent pact, a covenant to avoid all superfluous mention of the topic which met them on every hand, from every mouth, in every letter or printed sheet.  Rand was much occupied with important cases, much in demand in various portions of the state, much away from home.  She was not a woman to demand as her right entrance into every chamber of another’s soul.  Her own had its hushed rooms, its reticences, its altars built to solitude; she was aware that beyond, below, above the fair chamber where he entertained her were other spaces in her husband’s nature.  Into some she looked as through open door and clear windows, but others were closed to her, and she was both too proud and too pure of thought to search for keys that had not been offered her.

She knew that her husband had not meant to be absent from Richmond that day.  An unexpected turn in the case he was conducting had compelled his presence in Williamsburgh, and on the other hand, in Richmond, the labour of finding an impartial jury had been brought to a sudden end by Burr’s coup de main in refusing to challenge and calmly accepting as prejudiced a twelve as perhaps, in the United States of America, ever decided whether a man should live or die.  The move had hastened the day when the Government was to begin its cannonade.