"Senator Allison Kent,
Washington, D. C.
"Strictly Personal."
Both the address and contents were type-written.
Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a groan—an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal sorely stricken.
He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his mustache, twisting it into knots.
The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of retributive destiny.
"You have bad news, Judge Kent?"
He made no answer, and she seized his arm.
"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?"
As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's.