Upstairs in the attic, shivering under the blankets behind the big chest, Richard hearkened to the subdued echoes of gayety from below and went over thoughtfully the events of the day. All the morning and afternoon he had felt the nets closing about him, and when he read Joscelyn's hasty warning he knew that death stood at his elbow. Not that hope died, but what could hope do in such straights? He made ready as she bade him, folding the blankets and straightening the carpet, putting his boots into a barrel under a lot of old shoes and odds and scraps. Then with his ear to the door, he had waited for what seemed a dragging age. Always his care was for Joscelyn. Even when, during the search, the door was opened, and he stood crushed against the wall with his would-be captors and murderers not six feet away, the uppermost thought in his mind was for her, anxiety for her safety, admiration for her magnificent courage. Slipping out of the room in that momentary darkness, he had felt like a traitor deserting the thing on earth dearest to him, and had cursed the fate that sent him away. But the supreme moment came when, crouching by her bed, he saw through the tester curtain the British officer pause in the door with his lifted light. One step out into the room, and the flimsy curtain could not have hidden the figure of the man behind it. On that one more step hung life or death. Breathless, Richard waited, his unsheathed dirk in his hand. He knew this man,--hated as no other Englishman was hated through the length and breadth of the land,--standing thus unconscious of any danger, was utterly within his power. One strong upward blow where the heart was left uncovered by the lifted arm, and the cause of American liberty would lose one of its deadliest enemies. But the guards below, the soldiers swarming in the street--and Joscelyn! At thought of her the murderous instinct in his soul was quelled, and without so much as a relaxed muscle, he saw Tarleton turn from the room. Then he had hidden himself more carefully and waited for her coming. Mistaking for her the maid who came to light the fire, he was near to self-betrayal; and he could not remember how he had gotten out of sight when later on Mary burst into the room; but lying now at full length under the sloping rafters, he smiled at the measures Joscelyn had used to dispose of her, recognizing that subtle loyalty which would, in dire straits, give up a friend's love secret to another, but would not without an effort sacrifice that friend's modesty.