People may Know!”

Then Skaggs received a telegram that made him leap for joy.  He was to do it.  He was to go to the capital of the State.  He was to beard the Governor in his den, and he, with the force of a great paper behind him, was to demand for the people the release of an innocent man.  Then there would be another write-up and much glory for him and more shekels.  In an hour after he had received his telegram he was on his way to the Southern capital.

* * * * *

Meanwhile in the house of Maurice Oakley there were sad times.  From the moment that the master of the house had fallen to the floor in impotent fear and madness there had been no peace within his doors.  At first his wife had tried to control him alone, and had humoured the wild babblings with which he woke from his swoon.  But these changed to shrieks and cries and curses, and she was forced to throw open the doors so long closed and call in help.  The neighbours and her old friends went to her assistance, and what the reporter’s story had not done, the ravings of the man accomplished; for, with a show of matchless cunning, he continually clutched at his breast, laughed, and babbled his secret openly.  Even then they would have smothered it in silence, for the honour of one of their best families; but too many ears had heard, and then came the yellow journal bearing all the news in emblazoned headlines.

Colonel Saunders was distinctly hurt to think that his confidence had been imposed on, and that he had been instrumental in bringing shame upon a Southern name.

“To think, suh,” he said generally to the usual assembly of choice spirits,—­“to think of that man’s being a reporter, suh, a common, ordinary reporter, and that I sat and talked to him as if he were a gentleman!”

“You ’re not to be blamed, Colonel,” said old Horace Talbot.  “You ’ve done no more than any other gentleman would have done.  The trouble is that the average Northerner has no sense of honour, suh, no sense of honour.  If this particular man had had, he would have kept still, and everything would have gone on smooth and quiet.  Instead of that, a distinguished family is brought to shame, and for what?  To give a nigger a few more years of freedom when, likely as not, he don’t want it; and Berry Hamilton’s life in prison has proved nearer the ideal reached by slavery than anything he has found since emancipation.  Why, suhs, I fancy I see him leaving his prison with tears of regret in his eyes.”

Old Horace was inanely eloquent for an hour over his pet theory.  But there were some in the town who thought differently about the matter, and it was their opinions and murmurings that backed up Skaggs and made it easier for him when at the capital he came into contact with the official red tape.