It amounted to this—­that just after her husband’s first election, when Fleetwood’s claims for the Attorney-Generalship were being vainly pressed by a group of his political backers, Mrs. Mornway had chanced to sit next to him once or twice at dinner.  One day, on the strength of these meetings, he had called and asked her frankly if she would not help him with her husband.  He had made a clean breast of his past, but had said that, under a man like Mornway, he felt he could wipe out his political sins and purify himself while he served the party.  She knew the party needed his brains, and she believed in him—­she was sure he would keep his word.  She would have spoken in his favor in any case—­she would have used all her influence to overcome her husband’s prejudice—­and it was by a mere accident that, in the course of one of their talks, he happened to give her a “tip” (his past connections were still useful for such purposes), a “tip” which, in the first invading pressure of debt after Mornway’s election, she had not had the courage to refuse.  Fleetwood had made some money for her—­yes, about thirty thousand dollars.  She had repaid what he had lent her, and there had been no further transactions of the kind between them.  But it appeared that Gregg, before his dismissal, had got hold of an old check-book which gave a hint of the story, and had pieced the rest together with the help of a clerk in Fleetwood’s office.  The “Spy” was in possession of the facts, but did not mean to use them if Fleetwood was not reappointed, the Lead Trust having no personal grudge against Mornway.

Her story ended there, and she sat silent while he continued to look at her.  So much had perished in the wreck of his faith that he did not attach much value to what remained.  It scarcely mattered that he believed her when the truth was so sordid.  There had been, after all, nothing to envy him for but what Mrs. Nimick had seen; the core of his life was as mean and miserable as his sister’s. . . .

His wife rose at length, pale but still calm.  She had a kind of external dignity which she wore like one of her rich dresses.  It seemed as little a part of her now as the finery of which his gaze contemptuously reckoned the cost.

“John—­” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder.

He looked up wearily.  “You had better go to bed,” he interjected.

“Don’t look at me in that way.  I am prepared for your being angry with me—­I made a dreadful mistake and must bear my punishment:  any punishment you choose to inflict.  But you must think of yourself first—­you must spare yourself.  Why should you be so horribly unhappy?  Don’t you see that since Mr. Fleetwood has behaved so well we are quite safe?  And I swear to you I have paid back every penny of the money.”

VI

THREE days later Shackwell was summoned by telephone to the Governor’s office in the Capitol.  There had been, in the interval, no communication between the two men, and the papers had been silent or non-committal.