"I'm glad of that," answered her father, nodding. "He's head over heels in love with you, dear—and he seems, somehow, to make it a condition of——"
"Father," she interrupted, "I knew long, long ago that he admired me. I could tell—why, I'm so glad, so glad...."
Nevertheless the girl was very tired, was keyed up to the highest pitch. Her father had but three short weeks of respite, Morehead could do no more, and the legislature was ready to appoint its man in the place that Morehead with some desperate instinct had held vacant for so long. It was still a race, a running fight with Leslie, and she revelled in the fight. It was all a part of a desperate game, with her father for the stakes; and she played it with all her might and main.
"You will grant a pardon to my father?" she had implored of Leech, struggling feebly in his warm embrace.
"Yes," he had answered, drawing her still closer; and Leslie had submitted, persuading herself into the belief that this man was the one man for her.
"You promise?"
"I promise."
Ten days later he resigned his office as Assistant District Attorney of New York; and two weeks later he was lifted into the high place by the legislature. One day after he took his oath of office the petition for the pardon of Peter V. Wilkinson was handed to him; and faithful to his promise, he signed it on the spot.
For what did it matter to him or to Wilkinson, either, that there was a storm of protest—the storm of protest coming chiefly from the office of Murgatroyd? What did it matter to Leech that his name henceforth would be upon the black list at the Criminal Courts Building? He had made good and had won his reward—or almost. At any rate, for one thing, he was Governor....
The Morning Mail made but a feeble protest, for the Star and the Reporter had become bitter and exultant adversaries and gave harder than they took.