“What!” he exclaimed in despair. “It’s true, then! I have not seen the papers to-night.”
She brought him the two evening papers of opposite politics. In glowing headlines the Democratic paper told in exaggerated form the story of his early life, his humble home, his days of struggle, his start in politics, and his success, due to the father of the hardened criminal. Would the governor do his duty and see that law and order were maintained, or would he sacrifice the people to his personal obligations? David smiled grimly as he reflected that either course would be equally censured by this same paper.
He took up the other journal, the organ of his party, which stated the facts very much as the other paper had done, and added that Barnabas Brumble was en route to the capital city for the purpose of asking a pardon for his son. The editor, in another column, briefly and firmly expressed his faith in the belief that David Dunne would be stanch in his views of what was right and for the public welfare.
There was one consolation; neither paper had 246 profaned by public mention the love of his boyhood days.
“What shall I do! What should I do!” he asked himself in desperation.
“I know what you will do,” said Carey, quickly reading the unspoken words.
“What?”
“You will do, as you always do––what you believe to be right. David, tell me the story of those days.”
So from the background of his recollections he brought forward vividly a picture of his early life, a story she had heard only from others. He told her, too, of his boyish fancy for Janey.
There was silence when he had finished. Carey looked into the flickering light of the open fire with steady, musing eyes. It did not hurt her in the least that he had had a love of long ago. It made him but the more interesting, and appealed to her as a pretty and fitting romance in his life.