e spared no
pains in trying to see all and sundry who might be of use to him--Edward
Tighe, of Tighe & Co., who was still in business in Third Street; Newton
Targool; Arthur Rivers; Joseph Zimmerman, the dry-goods prince, now a
millionaire; Judge Kitchen; Terrence Relihan, the former representative
of the money element at Harrisburg; and many others.

Cowperwood wanted Relihan to approach the newspapers and see if he could
not readjust their attitude so as to work to get him out, and he wanted
Walter Leigh to head the movement of getting up a signed petition which
should contain all the important names of moneyed people and others,
asking the Governor to release him. Leigh agreed to this heartily, as
did Relihan, and many others.

And, afterwards there was really nothing else to do, unless it was to
see Aileen once more, and this, in the midst of his other complications
and obligations, seemed all but impossible at times--and yet he did
achieve that, too--so eager was he to be soothed and comforted by the
ignorant and yet all embracing volume of her love. Her eyes these days!
The eager, burning quest of him and his happiness that blazed in
them. To think that he should be tortured so--her Frank! Oh, she
knew--whatever he said, and however bravely and jauntily he talked. To
think that her love for him should have been the principal cause of his
being sent to jail, as she now believed. And the cruelty of her father!
And the smallness of his enemies--that fool Stener, for instance, whose
pictures she had seen in the papers. Actually, whenever in the presence
of her Frank, she fairly seethed in a chemic agony for him--her strong,
handsome lover--the strongest, bravest, wisest, kindest, handsomest man
in the world. Oh, didn't she know! And Cowperwood, looking in her eyes
and realizing this reasonless, if so comforting fever for him, smiled
and was touched. Such love! That of a dog for a master; that of a mother
for a child. And how had he come to evoke it? He could not say, but it
was beautiful.

And so, now, in these last trying hours, he wished to see her much--and
did--meeting her at least four times in the month in which he had been
free, between his conviction and the final dismissal of his appeal. He
had one last opportunity of seeing her--and she him--just before his
entrance into prison this last time--on the Saturday before the Monday
of his sentence. He had not come in contact with her since the decision
of the