“How little you know of women, Dick,” she said musingly. “You ask my love, and yet you deny that love its first privilege--the right to share your dangers and perplexities. More, you would even lie to it--by implication. But you have not succeeded wholly in doing that. Some things I have found out for myself, and one of them is--that you are not the traitor you seem to be, Richard.” “Hush--for heaven’s sake!” I interposed. “One whisper of that overheard in this house where Margaret Shippen is a guest--” “Poor, dear Margaret!” she said, and now she was all sympathy and pity. “I doubt if even she would betray you, Dick; and all the others in this house are secretly our friends. But what could have tempted you, a Page and an officer, to become a--a spy?” “That is what I can not--dare not--tell you, Beatrix,” I protested. “And that is not for my sake, but for your own. Won’t you believe me, heart of mine?” “I’ll never believe you love me as you say you do until you are willing to let me share your hazard, whatever it is,” she retorted. “You would not be sharing the hazard; you would merely be miserable, Beatrix dear.” “Then I claim the privilege of being miserable for your sake, Dick: please!” and her arms went out to me in a pleading gesture that no lover could withstand--for long. It was Cousin Julianna who saved me. There was a light tap at the door, and she entered in a fluster of alarm. “A lot of redcoat soldiers have just come into the yard and are surrounding the house!” she announced. “Is this some of your doing, Dickie Page?” I told her it was not, but I did not add that it would probably prove my eternal undoing. I could think of but one explanation: by some means Castner had prevailed upon Sir Henry Clinton to reestablish the order for my arrest, and the lieutenant had traced me hither. But I had no intention of letting the two women know what was awaiting me. “I’ll go out and see what is preparing to happen,” I offered lightly. “So much my red coat may do for you, Cousin Ju.” But now Beatrix sprang up and threw her arms around my neck and clung to me, protesting that I should not go--that I must not go; and I do think our good cousin was more deeply scandalized than I ever saw her. The little hubbub gave me a chance to whisper in my loved one’s ear: “You must let me go, Beatrix; it may be nothing. And if they have come for me, I could not escape. Be brave, dear, for my sake--and for the honor of the Leighs!” She loosed me, and though Mistress Pettus was looking on, I took the sweet face between my hands and kissed the trembling lips. Then I went out quickly to live or die, as it might befall, caring little, just at that moment, for the worst that any one could do to me.