Her lover! A sinistrous rage caught him as he repeated the word to himself. No softer thought of her now lurked in the bitter chambers of his mind. She had mocked and fooled him and he hated her with the still, cold hatred which the strong and evil man feels for the weaker thing that defies him. Yet so far as she was concerned he was helpless. He could not deny his declaration that he had not known the woman in the library. Life was long and he knew the penalty that in the south awaited the man who wantonly attacked the character of a woman. All facts aside, his sober judgment told him that the act would bar against him every social door that now stood open.
But Harry Sevier was another thing. Harry Sevier, thief and house-breaker? Harry Sevier, a midnight assassin? Harry Sevier, the nameless convict in the State's Penitentiary? What a story! Fate held its compensations, after all. Now he would be able to figure, first hand, in the sensation that he should send sweeping over the south like a lurid flame!
He rose and set the newspapers on the table, parting the leaves further along, now that his main craving had been satisfied catching glimpses of other things: movements in the business world, and the new political alignment, the danger of which, to the interests with which he was identified, he had long ago discerned. So the Civic Club following had become a full-fledged party now—was reaching out toward a state-wide organisation!
Suddenly his gaze fixed itself and he bent over the page staring unbelievingly. A hoarse ejaculation broke from him. What he saw was the line, in inch-high letters—
HENRY SEVIER FOR GOVERNOR!
He snatched up the file again and held it to the light. There was no mistake! Three months ago, while he had lain inert in the hospital above the river, the man he imagined the occupant of a prison-cell had been nominated for the highest office in the Commonwealth, the standard-bearer of the New Ideal!
For an instant a keen trepidation darted through him. His hand went up and touched the bandage. Could it be that he was—not himself? Was what he had imagined only the figment of a brain astray? With a fierce effort at self-control he sat down and beginning at the date at which he had left off his reading, began to scan the columns carefully and methodically, missing nothing.
For two hours he did this, and at length he came upon a paragraph at which his lowering face lightened with exultation. It chronicled in a dozen words the escape from the Penitentiary of the convict who was under imprisonment for the burglary of the Craig mansion and the shooting of its owner. The circle of evidence closed up. He was certain, now.
Craig laughed out loud, a grating laugh of sardonic amusement. Again the cards had fallen Harry Sevier's way. By some lucky chance he had freed himself, and with the effrontery of supposed security had resumed his old place and character, no one the wiser. Now he was actually running for Governor! Well, the higher the pinnacle the more spectacular the fall! The game was his, Craig's, for he held the highest trump!
He rang for his secretary.