"And pray, remember on your side, that you are to give those documents into the hands of the governor. Come along."
They met the watchman in the corridor and he saluted them and passed on. Bosworth strode eagerly forward in his anxiety to prick the bubble of Griswold's pretensions.
Griswold threw open the door of the governor's reception-room, and they blinked in the stronger light that poured in from the private office. There, in the governor's chair by the broad official desk, sat Barbara Osborne reading a newspaper.
"Your Excellency," said Griswold, bowing gravely and advancing; "I beg to present the attorney-general!"
"Barbara!"
The papers fell from the attorney-general's hands. He stood staring until astonishment began to yield to rage as he realized that a trap had been sprung upon him. The girl had risen instantly and a smile played about her lips for a moment. She had vaguely surmised that Griswold would charge Bosworth with the loss of the papers, but her associate in the conspiracy had now given a turn to the matter that amused her.
"Barbara!" blurted the attorney-general, "what game is this—what contemptible trick is this stranger playing on you? Don't you understand that your father's absence is a most serious matter and that in the present condition of this Appleweight affair it is likely to involve him and the state in scandal?"
Barbara regarded him steadily for a moment with a negative sort of gaze. She took a step forward before she spoke and then she asked quickly and sharply:
"What have you done, Mr. Bosworth, to avert these calamities, and what was in your mind when you pried open the drawer and took out those papers?"
"I was going to use the requisition—"