ded. "Go and do what you
have to do. I'll wait here."

Blount turned away and found old Barnabas holding the door open for him.
A word passed, and the old negro bobbed his head. "Yas, sah; Marsteh
David's in de libra'y," was the answer to Blount's query, and, throwing
his overcoat and soft hat aside, the bearer of burdens not his own
walked quickly through the hall and let himself into the room of trial.

The bright autumn day was cool--cool enough to warrant the crackling
wood-fire on the library hearth. With his easy chair planted at the
cosey corner of the fire and an open book on the table at his elbow,
the senator sat smoking his long-stemmed pipe in the Sunday afternoon
quiet. Mingled with the fire-snapping there were faint tappings, as if
one of the cottonwoods, growing too near the house, were sending twig
signals to the inmates.

The senator moved the open book a little farther aside when his son made
an abrupt entrance into the cheerful room.

"Well, son, you made out to get here after so long a time, didn't you?"
he said gently. And then: "How's the broken head to-day?"

"Better," answered the son shortly, adding: "It's the least of my
troubles just now."

"That's good," was the hearty comment. Then, with the long stem of the
pipe pointing to a Morris-chair: "Draw up and sit down. I reckon the
drive has tired you some, even if you won't admit it. Where's the little
girl?"

Evan Blount saw instantly that he must be brief and pitiless.

"Patricia is waiting in the car to drive me back to town," he explained,
forcing himself to speak calmly. "I have an appointment with Chief
Justice Hemingway which must be kept, and he will wait in his chambers
in the Capitol only until five o'clock. Father, do you know why I have
made that appointment?"

The senator wagged his great head in a way which might mean anything or
nothing, and said: "How should I know, son?"

"I hoped you would know. It's not a very pleasant task for me to tell
you," the younger man went on, ignoring the chair to which the
long-stemmed pipe was still pointing. "A short time ago--yesterday, to
be exact--evidence, legal evidence, of corruption and false registration
in four of the city wards, and in a number of outlying districts in the
State, was put into my hands. This evidence incriminates a group of
ringleaders and a still larger number of election officers. You know
what I've got to do with it."

The older man nodded slowly.

"Yes,