A month had passed since the memorable meeting of the directors of the Southern and Transcontinental Railroad in New York and during that time neither John Burkett Ryder nor Judge Rossmore had been idle.  The former had immediately set in motion the machinery he controlled in the Legislature at Washington, while the judge neglected no step to vindicate himself before the public.

Ryder, for reasons of his own—­probably because he wished to make the blow the more crushing when it did fall—­had insisted on the proceedings at the board meeting being kept a profound secret and some time elapsed before the newspapers got wind of the coming Congressional inquiry.  No one had believed the stories about Judge Rossmore but now that a quasi-official seal had been set on the current gossip, there was a howl of virtuous indignation from the journalistic muck rakers.  What was the country coming to? they cried in double leaded type.  After the embezzling by life insurance officers, the rascality of the railroads, the looting of city treasuries, the greed of the Trusts, the grafting of the legislators, had arisen a new and more serious scandal—­the corruption of the Judiciary.  The last bulwark of the nation had fallen, the country lay helpless at the mercy of legalized sandbaggers.  Even the judges were no longer to be trusted, the most respected one among them all had been unable to resist the tempter.  The Supreme Court, the living voice of the Constitution, was honeycombed with graft.  Public life was rotten to the core!

Neither the newspapers nor the public stopped to ascertain the truth or the falsity of the charges against Judge Rossmore.  It was sufficient that the bribery story furnished the daily sensation which newspaper editors and newspaper readers must have.  The world is ever more prompt to believe ill rather than good of a man, and no one, except in Rossmore’s immediate circle of friends, entertained the slightest doubt of his guilt.  It was common knowledge that the “big interests” were behind the proceedings, and that Judge Rossmore was a scapegoat, sacrificed by the System because he had been blocking their game.  If Rossmore had really accepted the bribe, and few now believed him spotless, he deserved all that was coming to him.  Senator Roberts was very active in Washington preparing the case against Judge Rossmore.  The latter being a democrat and “the interests” controlling a Republican majority in the House, it was a foregone conclusion that the inquiry would be against him, and that a demand would at once be made upon the Senate for his impeachment.

Almost prostrated by the misfortune which had so suddenly and unexpectedly come upon him, Judge Rossmore was like a man demented.  His reason seemed to be tottering, he spoke and acted like a man in a dream.  Naturally he was entirely incapacitated for work and he had applied to Washington to be temporarily relieved from his judicial duties.  He was instantly granted a leave of absence and went at once to his home in Madison Avenue, where he shut himself up in his library, sitting for hours at his desk wrestling with documents and legal tomes in a pathetic endeavour to find some way out, trying to elude this net in which unseen hands had entangled him.