"There would be prospects for him?"
"All the prospects in the world! I would place him only second to myself, so highly do I value his talents in an enterprise such as this. Alston's money, but Lewis's brains and courage! They both love you--do I not know?"
Troubled, again she turned her gaze aside.
"Listen, my daughter. That young man is wise--he has no such vast belief in yonder expedition. He is going in desperation, to escape a memory! Is it not true? Tell me--and believe that I am not blind--is not Captain Lewis going into the Missouri country in order to forget a certain woman? And do we not know, my daughter, who that woman is?"
Still her downcast eye gave him no reply.
"Meriwether Lewis yonder among the savages is a failure. Meriwether Lewis with me is second only to the vice-regent of the lower Louisiana country. Texas, Florida, much of Mexico, will join with us, that is sure. We fight with the great nations of the world, not against them--we fight with the stars in their courses, and not against them.
"Now, you have two pictures, my dear--one of Meriwether Lewis, the wanderer, a broken and hopeless man, living among the savages, a log hut his home, a camp fire the only hearth he knows. Picture that hopeless and broken man--condemned to that by yourself, my dear--and then picture that other figure whom you can see rescued, restored to the world, placed by your own hand in a station of dignity and power. Then, indeed, he might forget--he might forgive. Yonder he will forsake his manhood--he will relax his ideals, and go down, step by step, until he shall not think of you again.
"There are two pictures, my daughter. Which do you prefer--what do you decide to do? Shall you condemn him, or shall you rescue him? Forgive your father for having spoken thus plainly. I know your heart--I know your generosity as well as I know your loyalty and ambition. There is no reason, my dear, why, for the sake of your father, for the sake of yourself, and for the sake of that young man yonder, you should not go to him immediately and carry my message."
"Could it be possible," she began at length, half musing, "that I, who made Captain Lewis so unhappy, could aid a man like him to reach a higher and better place in life? Could I save him from himself--and from myself?"
"You speak like my own daughter! If that generous wish bore fruit, I think that in the later years of life, for both of you, the reflection would prove not unwelcome. I know, as well as I know anything, that no other woman will ever hold a place in the heart of Meriwether Lewis. There is a memory there which will shut out all other things on earth. We deal now in delicate matters, it is true; but I have been frank with you, because, knowing your loyalty and fairness, knowing your ambition, even-paced with mine, none the less I know your discretion and your generosity as well. You see, I have chosen the best messenger in all the world to advance my own ambition. Indeed, I have chosen the only one in all the world who might undertake this errand with the slightest prospect of success."