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 deceive me! Ye are a suspect—indeed, e'en now there be proof o' your duplicity lodged wi' headquarters. To be proven a spy, whether man or woman, is to run the risk o' hanging! Be warned, now, for danger hovers o'er ye!" Then, as the inn mistress, ashen-faced, stumbled from the room, he turned to Mehitable and his expression changed. "Let me unbind ye, Hitty!" he said, an odd breathlessness in his voice.

"Thank ye, Aaron! Let us go into the other room—I like it not here!" Mehitable, as soon as she was free, stood up and walked toward the door. "Where can Father be! Well," she looked at him wonderingly, "what is it, Aaron?"

The young man, following her into the empty taproom, stood gazing at her absently. "Hitty," he burst out at last, "I was upon my way to your father's house! Canst guess why?"

Mehitable, gazing at him in the utmost astonishment as he sat down beside her on the inglenook bench, suddenly dropped her eyes at the tremendous meaning she read in his all at once.

But with realization came strong aversion to his meaning. Always Aaron had been a friend of the family, a brave young soldier—for he was a major in the American army—and likable, yet always the girl had thought of him as her cousin's lover and husband. Now the knowledge that he was seeking to replace his lost bride and that he would like to