he State
with a little beggarly thieving nonentity? It's evident enough you're
new at wire-pulling, or you would show more skill at it!"

She met this with a laugh. "I'm not likely to have much practice if my
first attempt is such a failure. Well, I will see if Mrs. Gregg will
let me help her a little--I suppose there is nothing else to be done."

"Nothing that we can do. If Gregg wants a place he had better get one
on the staff of the 'Spy.' He served them better than he did me."

III

THE Governor stared at the card with a frown. Half an hour had elapsed
since his wife had gone upstairs to dress for the big dinner from which
official duties excused him, and he was still lingering over the fire
before preparing for his own solitary meal. He expected no one that
evening but his old friend Hadley Shackwell, with whom it was his
long-established habit to talk over his defeats and victories in the
first lull after the conflict; and Shackwell was not likely to turn up
till nine o'clock. The unwonted stillness of the room, and the
knowledge that he had a quiet evening before him, filled the Governor
with a luxurious sense of repose. The world seemed to him a good place
to be in, and his complacency was shadowed only by the fear that he had
perhaps been a trifle over-harsh in refusing his wife's plea for the
stenographer. There seemed, therefore, a certain fitness in the
appearance of the man's card, and the Governor with a sigh gave orders
that Gregg should be shown in.

Gregg was still the soft-stepping scoundrel who invited the toe of
honesty, and Mornway, as he entered, was conscious of a sharp revulsion
of feeling. But it was impossible to evade the interview, and he sat
silent while the man stated his case.

Mrs. Mornway had represented the stenographer as being in desperate
straits, and ready to accept any job that could be found, but though
his appearance might have seemed to corroborate her account, he
evidently took a less hopeless view of his case, and the Governor found
with surprise that he had fixed his eye on a clerkship in one of the
Government offices, a post which had been half promised him before the
incident of the letters. His plea was that the Governor's charge,
though unproved, had so injured his reputation that he could only hope
to clear himself by getting some sort of small job under the
Administration. After that, it would be easy for him to obtain any
employment he wanted.

He met Mornwa