boldly with
the old dash of impulse.

"They told me that to-morrow would be too late," she said. "I went to
Ben Galt's to ask him to come to you in my place, but he is out of town.
I found you there instead. It is a matter of life and death to me, so I
came."

She sat down in the chair he had drawn up for her, her muff fell to the
floor, and he placed it upon the desk where the petition lay unrolled.
As he did so he saw the list of names that presented the appeal--judge,
jury, prosecuting attorney, all were there.

She followed his gaze and moved slightly towards him. "It can't be true
that you--that you will not--" she said.

He was stirring the fire into flame, but as she broke off he turned
squarely upon her.

"I have not looked into the case," he answered harshly.

He was standing beside his own hearthstone and he was at ease. There was
no awkwardness about him now; his height endowed him with majesty, and
in his inflexible face there was no suggestion of heaviness. He looked a
man with a sublime self-confidence.

Her colour beat quickly back, warming her eyes.

"Oh, I am so glad," she said. "When you know all you will do as we ask
you, because it is right and just. If he did not serve that two years'
sentence he has served six years of poverty and sickness. He is a
wreck--we should not know him, they say--and he has not seen his wife
and children for--"

He raised his hand and stopped her. A rising anger clouded his face,
and, as she met his eyes, she slowly whitened.

"And you ask me--me of all men--to show mercy to Bernard Battle? Was
there not a governor of Virginia before me?"

She shook her head.

"Oh, it was different then--he did not know, and we did not know,
everything. For years we had not heard from him--"

"So my predecessor refused?" he asked.

She bowed her head. "But it is so different now--every one is with us."

He was looking her over grimly in an anger that seemed an emotional
reversion to the past--as he felt himself reverting with all his
strength to the original savage of the race. The hour for which he had
starved sixteen years ago was unfolding for him at last. He gloated over
it with a passion that would sicken him when it was done.

"When you came to me," he said slowly, "did you remember--"

She had risen and was standing before him, her hands hidden in the fur
upon her bosom. She was pleading now with startled eyes and cold
lips--she who had turned from him when the