“Why should I punish myself—­why should we punish those nearest and dearest?” answered Shirley gently, “the victims of human injustice always suffer where their loved ones are tortured.  Why are things as they are—­I don’t know.  I know they are—­that’s all.”

The young man strode nervously up and down the room while she gazed listlessly out of the window, looking for the cab that was to carry her away from this house of disappointment.  He pleaded with her: 

“I have tried honourably and failed—­you have tried honourably and failed.  Isn’t the sting of impotent failure enough to meet without striving against a hopeless love?” He approached her and said softly:  “I love you Shirley—­don’t drive me to desperation.  Must I be punished because you have failed?  It’s unfair.  The sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the children.”

“But they are—­it’s the law,” said Shirley with resignation.

“The law?” he echoed.

“Yes, the law,” insisted the girl; “man’s law, not God’s, the same unjust law that punishes my father—­man’s law which is put into the hands of the powerful of the earth to strike at the weak.”

She sank into a chair and, covering up her face, wept bitterly.  Between her sobs she cried brokenly: 

“I believed in the power of love to soften your father’s heart, I believed that with God’s help I could bring him to see the truth.  I believed that Truth and Love would make him see the light, but it hasn’t.  I stayed on and on, hoping against hope until the time has gone by and it’s too late to save him, too late!  What can I do now?  My going to Washington is a forlorn hope, a last, miserable, forlorn hope and in this hour, the darkest of all, you ask me to think of myself—­my love, your love, your happiness, your future, my future!  Ah, wouldn’t it be sublime selfishness?”

Jefferson kneeled down beside the chair and taking her hand in his, tried to reason with her and comfort her: 

“Listen, Shirley,” he said, “do not do something you will surely regret.  You are punishing me not only because I have failed but because you have failed too.  It seems to me that if you believed it possible to accomplish so much, if you had so much faith—­that you have lost your faith rather quickly.  I believed in nothing, I had no faith and yet I have not lost hope.”

She shook her head and gently withdrew her hand.

“It is useless to insist, Jefferson—­until my father is cleared of this stain our lives—­yours and mine—­must lie apart.”

Someone coughed and, startled, they both looked up.  Mr. Ryder had entered the room unobserved and stood watching them.  Shirley immediately rose to her feet indignant, resenting this intrusion on her privacy after she had declined to receive the financier.  Yet, she reflected quickly, how could she prevent it?  He was at home, free to come and go as he pleased, but she was not compelled to remain in the same room with him.  She picked up the few things that lay about and with a contemptuous toss of her head, retreated into the inner apartment, leaving father and son alone together.