She knew what Potter was doing; remembered those talks with him, his enthusiasm, his awakening to patriotism--and she, too, was a patriot. That work of his must have been of value; he must have achieved much to demand attention from her father and his companions. She was conscious of a glow of pride, and then was furious with herself for feeling pride. What interest had she in Potter Waite--and if she had an interest in him, or in any honest man, what could come of it? There was another decision she had reached: That she could be wife to no honest American. She, the daughter of a traitor, could make no honorable man the father of the grandchildren of a traitor. She had thought of those children--and of their shame, and of generations of shame that would follow them. The stigma would follow from mother to children to children's children. Nearly a hundred and fifty years had passed since Benedict Arnold sought to betray his country, and his name was remembered, his treachery recalled, where noble men and noble acts had been forgotten. No children of hers should feel the shame that would be their birthright because the blood of Herman von Essen was in their veins. Such a conclusion is a terrible thing for a girl like Hildegarde, vivid with life, entering womanhood, ripe for love and marriage! But it was there, weighing her, overshadowing her, choking her with its noose of blackness. Her duty was plain--her duty to her country and to decent citizenship; but opposing it was the demand of blood. To give her father over to the law was unthinkable. Had it been thinkable she doubted if she had evidence which would stand the test--her unsupported word.... But she could not see that crime committed, which it lay in her power to avert, and continue to live.... It would make her a party to the crime, an abettor of murder.... She could give warning; she _must_ give warning--but how or to whom? How, without betraying her father? There was but one answer that she could see--to go herself to Potter Waite, to warn him, to beg him to ask no questions as to the source of her information, to trust to his honor and his chivalry. She was confident she could trust him. In that moment she laid aside the pretense that she despised him--but she did not admit that she loved him. She saw him as a man, an American gentleman, trustworthy, brave, dependable. She rested herself on that quality of dependability; felt she could trust herself to it utterly. She could give warning; put him on his guard, frustrate the plotters--and escape from the complexity without betraying the secret she must not betray.