“Of course, you're not going to-night?” he asked anxiously. “My father did not mean to-night.”
“No, Jeff,” she said wearily; “not to-night. It's a little too late. I did not realize it. To-morrow morning, early.”
He seemed reassured and held out his hand:
“Good-night, dearest—you're a brave girl. You made a splendid fight.”
“It didn't do much good,” she replied in a disheartened, listless way.
“But it set him thinking,” rejoined Jefferson. “No one ever spoke to my father like that before. It did him good. He's still marching up and down the library, chewing the cud—”
Noticing Shirley's tired face and her eyes, with great black circles underneath, he stopped short.
“Now don't do any more packing to-night,” he said. “Go to bed and in the morning I'll come up and help you. Good night!”
“Good night, Jeff,” she smiled.
He went downstairs, and after doing some more packing she went to bed. But it was hours before she got to sleep, and then she dreamed that she was in the Senate Chamber and that she saw Ryder suddenly rise and denounce himself before the astonished senators as a perjurer and traitor to his country, while she returned to Massapequa with the glad news that her father was acquitted.