en from the room.

"Yes, take me home," said Elizabeth.

He led her from the house and the door closed behind them on their last
hope. Both shared in the bitter consciousness of this. They had been
brought face to face with the inexorable demands of life, they had been
foredoomed to failure from the very beginning.

"Father?" she gasped.

"Yes, dear?" He spoke with infinite tenderness.

"Is there nothing more?"

"Nothing, but to go home."

Deeply as he felt for her, he knew that he realized only an
infinitesimal part of her suffering.

"The governor has refused to interfere?"

"You heard what he said, dear," he answered simply.

"And I have to go back and tell John that after all our hopes, after all
our prayers--"

"Perhaps you would better not go back," he suggested.

"Not go back? No, I must see him! You would not deny me this--"

"I would deny you nothing," said her father fervently.

"Dismiss the carriage, and we will walk to the station; there is time?"

"Yes."

For a little while they walked on in silence, the girl's hands clasped
about her father's arm.

"I can not understand it yet!" said Elizabeth at length, speaking in a
fearful whisper. "It is incredible. Oh, can't you save him--can't you?"

The general did not trust himself to answer her.

"We have failed. Do you think it would have been different if Judge
Belknap had not been called away?"

General Herbert shook his head.

"And now we must go back to him! We were to have telegraphed him; we
won't now, will we?"

"My poor, poor Elizabeth!" cried the general brokenly.

"How shall we ever tell him!"

"I will go alone," said the general.

"No, no--I must see him! You are sure we have time to catch our
train--if we should miss it--" and the thought gave her a sudden
feverish energy.

"You need not hurry," her father assured her.

"But look at your watch!" she entreated.

"We have half an hour," he said.

"You can think of nothing more to do?" she asked, after another brief
silence.

"Nothing, dear."

Little was said until they boarded the train, but in the drawing-room of
the Pullman which her father had been able to secure, Elizabeth's
restraint forsook her, and she abandoned herself to despair. Her father
silently took his place at her side. Oppressed and preoccupied, the
sting of defeat unmitigated, he was struggling with the problem of the
future. The morrow with its hideous tragedy seemed both the end and the
begi