It was but little wonder that, witnessing the burst of rage with which Wilkinson had told him of the Governor's refusal to pardon, not to speak of the pitiful state of collapse in which he found Leslie, that thwarted and disappointed as he was, Colonel Morehead came to feel that there was little likelihood of anything being immediately done towards the forming of a new campaign. Practically, the Wilkinson advisory committee had dwindled down to three—a triumvirate now, as it were—for Flomerfelt, doubtless for reasons of his own, had returned to New York; and Morehead at once set himself the task of forcing the intellects of father and daughter to resume their functions. With the girl it did not prove difficult. Womanlike, and despite her horror of the inevitable, she flung aside her own personal troubles at the call of the Colonel for a consultation, and entered the conclave intent on helping her father in his last great struggle with an energy that she determined would be boundless.
"Colonel Morehead, why can't father go away?" suddenly said the girl.
"Why not, Morehead?" asked Wilkinson, fairly jumping at her words.
But the Colonel was still sullen. He was beaten, or thought he was, which is very much the same thing. Wilkinson, on the contrary, seemed to find new life in the moroseness of the other. And for the first time in the struggle Wilkinson seemed to feel that the whole fight rested on his own shoulders, and Wilkinson was one who dearly loved to fight alone and single-handed.
"Why not run away, Morehead?" he repeated.
"How?" demanded the Colonel with little interest.
"The Marchioness ..." suggested Leslie.
"And forfeit a million dollars bail?"
"Yes. Why not?"
"Don't make any mistake," declared Wilkinson, "they'll never get me behind the bars again! Never! Not even if I have to——" A new strange note had forced itself into his tone. Leslie, feeling suddenly cold, crept closer to him.