"Yes, perfectly."
"Then make it clear to me. You can't do it, don't you see? You can't do it."
"Yes, he can, father; yes, he can," Mrs. Witherspoon pleaded. "It is perfectly clear to me. You will look at it differently to-morrow. Come, now, and lie down. Sleep will make it clear. Come on, now."
She took hold of his arm. With a helpless trust he looked up at her. "Come on, now." He lifted his heavy hands, got up with difficulty and suffered her to lead him away.
CHAPTER XXV.
IMPATIENTLY WAITING.
While it was yet dark, and long before the dimply lake had caught a glint from the coming sun, Witherspoon asked for the morning papers. At brief periods of troubled sleep during the night he had fancied that he was reading of the wreck of the Colossus and of his own disgrace: and when he was told that the papers had not come, that it was too early for them, he said: "Don't try to keep them back. I am prepared." He wanted to get up and put on his clothes, but his wife begged him to remain in bed.
"Was the doctor here?" he asked.
"Yes, don't you remember telling him that Brooks had been arrested?"