accusation had killed him?  Her blood froze in her veins, she clenched her fists and dug her nails into her flesh as she thought of the dread possibility that she had looked upon him in life for the last time.  She remembered his last kind words when he came to the steamer to see her off, and his kiss when he said good-bye and she had noticed a tear of which he appeared to be ashamed.  The hot tears welled up in her own eyes and coursed unhindered down her cheeks.

What could these preposterous and abominable charges mean?  What was this lie they had invented to ruin her father?  That he had enemies she well knew.  What strong man had not?  Indeed, his proverbial honesty had made him feared by all evil-doers and on one occasion they had gone so far as to threaten his life.  This new attack was more deadly than all—­to sap and destroy his character, to deliberately fabricate lies and calumnies which had no foundation whatever.  Of course, the accusation was absurd, the Senate would refuse to convict him, the entire press would espouse the cause of so worthy a public servant.  Certainly, everything would be done to clear his character.  But what was being done?  She could do nothing but wait and wait.  The suspense and anxiety were awful.

Suddenly she heard a familiar step behind her, and Jefferson joined her at the rail.  The wind was due West and blowing half a gale, so where they were standing—­one of the most exposed parts of the ship—­it was difficult to keep one’s feet, to say nothing of hearing anyone speak.  There was a heavy sea running, and each approaching wave looked big enough to engulf the vessel, but as the mass of moving water reached the bow, the ship rose on it, light and graceful as a bird, shook off the flying spray as a cat shakes her fur after an unwelcome bath, and again drove forward as steady and with as little perceptible motion as a railway train.  Shirley was a fairly good sailor and this kind of weather did not bother her in the least, but when it got very rough she could not bear the rolling and pitching and then all she was good for was to lie still in her steamer chair with her eyes closed until the water was calmer and the pitching ceased.

“It’s pretty windy here, Shirley,” shouted Jefferson, steadying himself against a stanchion.  “Don’t you want to walk a little?”

He had begun to call her by her first name quite naturally, as if it were a matter of course.  Indeed their relations had come to be more like those of brother and sister than anything else.  Shirley was too much troubled over the news from home to have a mind for other things, and in her distress she had turned to Jefferson for advice and help as she would have looked to an elder brother.  He had felt this impulse to confide in him and consult his opinion and it had pleased him more than he dared betray.  He had shown her all the sympathy of which his warm, generous nature was capable, yet secretly he did not