The traitor never left his house all that afternoon, and when I was not dozing in my chair in the corridor, I could hear his pen scratching steadily, hour upon hour. For a brevet-commander who was, in truth, no more than the colonel of a regiment, Arnold did more writing than any lawyer’s clerk, and sometimes I have wondered if his treasonable correspondence did not have its first beginnings in his insatiable thirst for letter-writing. But no: it was his vanity again, which ever loves to dribble from a pen’s point, that made him such a slave of the ink-pot. The house darkened early in the afternoon, and when I went to the corridor window to look at the sky, there were promises of a storm. Here was Champe’s prophecy of further obstacles on its way to fulfillment hours ahead of any possible move we could make. Inclement weather, rain, snow or cold, we might brave, but not a wind which would raise a sea. I looked at the heavens long and earnestly. There was a gray sky, but the clouds were lower than I liked to see them. Rain or snow it would be, I decided, with a chance of wind from the southeast. That was nothing, so long as it did not blow too hard. It was near about dusk, and the serving man had brought me my supper on a tray, when Arnold opened the door for the first time and found me at my post. “Lord, Captain Page!” he said. “Have you been here all the afternoon? You took me too literally. Go down to the dining-room and have yourself served in some comfort. Afterward, you may come and get a letter for Mistress Arnold, leaving Sergeant Champe on duty in the lower hall. We are in no such peril as to need a death watch.” That matter of carrying another letter to Margaret Shippen set me to blowing hot and cold in the same instant; elate with the thought that I might see Beatrix again, and apprehensive from the fear that if I should see her, I must be put to it harder than ever to defend my secret. Also, there was another thing to add a chill, if not of apprehension, at least of decent reluctance. How could I brazenly face the dear lady, who was so good to Beatrix and me, with a lie in my eyes and false words on my lips, carrying her husband’s love-billets on the very eve of a deed which would crush her into the dust of affliction? I was half minded to ask Arnold to make Champe his messenger, pressing the resolve so far as to inquire of the sergeant if he could find the way in the dark to a certain house across the open square from Mr. Justice Smith’s. When he was doubtful about it, I braced myself and said I would go; which, when I had posted Champe in the lower hall, and had got the letter from Arnold, I did. The promise of a bad night weather-wise was beginning to come to pass when I set out--a bit warily for the sake of Lieutenant Castner’s shrewd and watchful enmity--to thread the poorly lighted streets. A cold rain was falling and the wind off the bay was sharp-edged, with a threat of more to follow.