A faint sigh fluttered from Rhoda’s lips. With a start Delavan dropped her hands and sank upon the sofa beside them. His head bowed on his breast and a deep, shuddering breath, that was almost a sob, shook his body. “I think I’ll go now,” said Rhoda tremulously. “No, don’t go. I want you beside me a little while. Sit down here. No, don’t be afraid--give me your hand.” For a little space they sat in silence, like two children venturing into some unknown region and gaining courage by clasp of hands. At last he rose. “I will leave you now, dear heart. But it’s not good-by, even yet. I still believe that sometime I shall call you wife. I’m proud to have won your love, Rhoda, prouder than of anything else I shall ever do.” He pressed her hand to his lips, bowed ceremoniously, and a moment later she was listening to the sound of his footsteps as he walked down the path to the gate. CHAPTER XIX After the discovery of the hiding place in the woodshed, Dr. Ware and his Underground co-workers thought it best for a little while to receive no runaways in his house. For it was closely watched, not only by the officers whose duty it was to enforce the Fugitive Slave law, but also by the slave hunters who made it a business to trail and capture northward-bound chattels for the sake of the rewards offered by their owners. In order to divert suspicion Walter and Lewis Kimball and several other young men who were in the habit of keeping a lookout for the fugitives contrived to secrete them elsewhere until surveillance upon the white house on the hilltop was relaxed. In the meantime Dr. Ware made ready a new place of concealment. An end of the cellar extending beneath the room occupied by the two black servants was separated from the rest by a solid wall. A trap door was cut in the floor and a flight of stairs set in. Carpet concealed the door and over it was usually set a table, chairs, or other furniture. The cellar room was dark and had little ventilation, but Dr. Ware and Rhoda congratulated themselves that it would be perfectly safe. “Why, father, it’s like a dungeon in a castle,” the girl exclaimed with a laughing face as she came up after making it ready with pallets and cots and a generous supply of old quilts and blankets. “While they are shut up in there they can rest and sleep, and so can we, without the least fear that they’ll be discovered!”