fort
to-morrow. It is a wonderful responsibility, sir--the whole future
of this country dependent upon what flows from your brain a few
hours hence, but as you have won other great victories by efforts
almost unprecedented, so you will win this. I am not so
presumptuous as to write this to inspire you, merely to assure you
of a gravity, which, after so long and energetic a contest, you
might be disposed to underrate.

Hamilton was very grateful for this note, and answered it more warmly
than had been his habit. His friends were deep in gloomy
prognostications, for it was impossible to delay twenty-four hours
longer. He had made converts, but not enough to secure a majority; and
his followers did not conceive that even he could put forth an effort
more convincing or more splendid than many of his previous achievements.
In consequence, his susceptible nature had experienced a chill, for he
was Gallic enough to compass greater things under the stimulus of
encouragement and prospective success; but this unquestioning belief in
him by a woman for whose mind he was beginning to experience a profound
admiration, sent his quicksilver up to a point where he felt capable of
all things. She had scored one point for herself. He felt that it would
be unpardonable longer to accept such favours as she showered upon him
unsought, and make no acknowledgment beyond a civil note: he expressed
his desire to call upon her when they were both in New York once more.
"But not here in Arcadia!" he thought. "I'll call formally at her
lodgings and take Troup or Morris with me. Morris will doubtless abduct
her, and that will be the end of it."

IX

On the following day every shop was closed in Poughkeepsie. The men,
even many of the women, stood for hours in the streets, talking little,
their eyes seldom wandering from the Court-house, many of them crowding
close to the walls, that they might catch a ringing phrase now and
again. By this time they all knew Hamilton's voice, and they confessed
to a preference for his lucid precision. In front of the Court-house,
under a tree, an express messenger sat beside his horse, saddled for a
wild dash to New York with the tidings. The excitement seemed the more
intense for the heat of the day, which half suppressed it, and all
longed for the snap of the tension.

Within the upper room of the Court-house the very air vibrated. Clinton,
who always grunted at intervals,