'Where is he now?' She paused, swiftly considering. 'He must come to me, here,' she said decisively. 'He will be safe. I will write him at once, but it mustn't be trusted to the mails. We can send one of the servants to take the letter direct'. 'That won't be necessary,' said Joseph coldly. 'He is already on his way to you. A roundabout way, for he is off the coast of Georgia. He dared not travel overland until the hue and cry dies down. Major Butler has offered him asylum on Saint Simon's Island. I have a letter to you from him which was dispatched from Philadelphia and sent in my care.'

He rummaged in his pockets while she watched him in a fever of impatience. Aaron, persecuted and in danger, Aaron in flight——These things were incredible. She scarcely felt fear for him, so monstrous did it seem that he could find himself in any situation of which he was not the cool master. His note both reassured her and yet confirmed the facts as Joseph's bald statements had not seemed to.

PHILADELPHIA, August 3rd, 1804

You will have learned through Mr. Alston, of certain measures pursuing against me in New York. I absent myself from home, merely to give a little time for passions to subside, not from any apprehension of the final effects of proceedings in courts of law. They can, by no possibility, eventually affect my person. You will find the papers filled with all manner of nonsense and lies. Among other things, accounts of attempts to assassinate me. These, I assure you, are mere fables. Those who wish me dead prefer to keep at a very respectful distance. No such attempt has been made nor will be made. I walk and ride about here as usual.

A. BURS

She put the note in her bodice. 'As always, he makes little of his troubles,' she said softly. 'Oh, Joseph, you do think he's safe, don't you? He does not write thus only to reassure me?'

'Oh, he's safe enough where he is in Georgia. They had no love for Hamilton down there.'

'And he must come to us, at once. You must write, too, so that he will be assured of welcome.'

'I suppose so,' said Joseph unenthusiastically. The visit of a debonair Vice-President had been one thing, but the harboring of a disgraced fugitive with a murder charge, however unwarranted, hanging over him was quite another: particularly in view of Joseph's own growing importance in the legislature. Moreover, he was tired and hungry and sick of the subject, which had been disturbing him for many days.

'How can you speak so coldly?' she demanded with resentment. 'Were it one of your own family who was in trouble, you would stop at nothing to help him.'

'My own family wouldn't get into a mess like this,' he snapped.