The night was hot and dark when Rand, riding Selim, left the town and took the Monticello road. He forded the creek, and the horse, scrambling up the farther side, struck fire from the loose stones. Farther on, the way grew steep, and the heavy shadow of the overhanging trees made yet more oppressive the breathless night. The stars could hardly be seen between the branches, but from the ground to the leafy roof the fireflies sparkled restlessly. Rand thought, as he rode, of the future and the present, but not of the past. It was so old and familiar, this road, that he might well feel the eyes of the past fixed upon him from every bush and tree; but if he felt the gaze, he set his will and would not return it. For some time he climbed through the thick darkness, shot with those small and wandering fires, but at last he came upon the higher levels and saw below him the wide and dark plain. In the east there was heat lightning. Here on the mountain-top the air blew, and a man was free from the dust of the valley. He drew a long breath, checked Selim for a moment, and, sitting there, looked out over the vast expanse; but the eyes of the past grew troublesome, and he hurried on. It was striking nine when a negro opened the house gate for him and, following him to the portico, took the horse from which he dismounted. Light streamed from the open door, and from the library windows. Except for a glimmer in the Abbé Correa's room, the rest of the house was in darkness. If Mrs. Randolph and her daughters were there, they had retired. He heard no voices. In the hot and sulphurous night the pillared, silent house with its open portal provoked a sensation of strangeness. Rand crossed the portico and paused at the door. Time had been when he would have made no pause, but, familiar to the house and assured of his welcome, would have passed through the wide hall to the library and his waiting friend and mentor. Now he laid his hand upon the knocker, but before it could sound, a door halfway down the hall opened, and there appeared the tall figure of the President. He stood for a moment, framed in the doorway, gazing at his visitor, and there was in his regard a curious thoughtfulness, an old regret, and--or so Rand thought--a faint hostility. The look lasted but a moment; he raised his hand, and, with a movement that was both a gesture of welcome and an invitation to follow him, turned and entered the passage which led to the library. Rand moved in silence through the hall, where Indian curiosities, horns of elk, and prehistoric relics were arranged above the marble heads of Buonaparte and Alexander the First, Franklin and Voltaire, and down the narrow passage to the room that had been almost chief of all his sacred places. It was now somewhat dimly lit, with every window wide to the night. Jefferson, sitting beside the table in his particular great chair, motioned the younger man to a seat across from him, evidently placed in anticipation of his coming.