"And who in hell be _ye_?" the newcomer inquired. He swung about as Deborah appeared behind him in the doorway, the back of one hand to her mouth. He said, "Is this some scurvy trick to put me further still in the thrall of my wretched wife?" "Charles!" Deborah whispered reproachfully. "Ye promised...." "I know it," Justin replied desperately, "but I had to hide somewhere. There's a mob chasing me through the streets." "But e'en so ..." the girl began, then hesitated as the faint sound of the hue and cry could be heard from the streets outside. The red-headed man's voice was sharp as the crack of an Australian bullwhip. He said, "That's Will Molineux!" Then, fiercely, to Justin, "What have ye done to bring Will and his cutthroats on ye'r tail?" "I had a little trouble with Mr. Adams," Justin murmured. "So!" The big man took a menacing step toward him. He glanced at Deborah, who appeared stricken, then said, "'Twould appear there is more in this entire episode than meets the eye. Mayhap ye'r one with my wretched wife and her wretched Tory friends." He took another step toward Justin, obviously measuring him for a blow. Deborah gave a little cry and leapt forward, seizing his right arm and dragging upon it with all of her weight. "Please!" she cried. "_Please_, Master Otis...." Otis! Justin was stunned. The resemblance to his well-known portrait was unmistakable. Here was James Otis, the brilliant and powerful young Boston lawyer who first, in that very month of February, in that very year of 1761, stood up for four hours in the Province House and defied the right of the Crown to issue the unlimited search warrants known as "Writs of Assistance" in order to check smuggling. Here was the man who resigned his lucrative position as King's Advocate for Massachusetts, defied his wealthy Tory wife and all his wife's friends to make the first open plea for Colonial freedom. Here was the man who gave heart to the Adamses, to Hancock and, in a vastly widening circle, to the Virginians Patrick Henry and, later, Thomas Jefferson. Here was the man who led Boston toward freedom until the tensions of his own career and domestic life drove him at length to madness. Worse, as Justin quickly realised, here was the man to whom Deborah's friends and family were asking her to give herself. Justin understood their motives all too well. Apparently, unless he found some outlet away from his strife-torn home, Otis' friends already feared for his sanity. Employing an age-old therapy they had selected Deborah to supply that outlet.