“You—you have no evidence,” he said. “You make grave charges, and on nothing but your unsupported word.... I—in fairness—I do not see how I can consider them. Charges against a man of Fownes’s standing.”
Carmel knew she was defeated. Her mission had been in vain. Such a man as the Governor was to be reached only by underground channels, by the political alleys and blind byways so well known to him.... He was spineless, a figurehead, nothing.... Fownes would get his man, Jenney would become sheriff, and Gibeon would be abandoned into the arms of the liquor smugglers.... To her personally it meant more than this. It meant imminent danger.... With the machinery for detecting and apprehending criminals in his hands, Fownes would find little difficulty in disposing of herself.... She made one more desperate effort, pleading, cajoling, arguing—but in vain.
“Shall I call the servant?” Fownes said, with his cold eyes upon Carmel. “I think we have had enough of this.”
“No scene. We must have no scene. Will you go quietly, Miss Lee.”
“I will go,” she said, “and Heaven help a state with such a man at its head....”
She went out of the alcove, ascended the stairs, and found her wrap. Her automobile drew up as its number was called, and she entered.
“The telegraph office, quickly,” she said.
At the office she sent two messages—one to Evan Pell, the other to Jared Whitefield himself. They announced her failure.
“Can you—will you drive me back to Gibeon to-night?” she asked the chauffeur.
“Mr. Whitefield said I was to do whatever you wanted.”