.

"I am unable to go to him--I bring the case to you. Go, I beg of you,
to Washington and plead with the congressman from this, your native
district, and the Arkansas representative, who is your kinsman. Urge
them to see the President and prevail upon him to sift the evidence.
I realize most bitterly that I have no claim upon you, but oh, for
God's sake, Madam, do what you can for a distracted father. Hanging!
Oh, save him from that--and act quickly, for he has only five days
to live. I am crazed with anxiety and sleeplessness.

"Your obedient servant,

"Robert Garrett."

Jessie Forrester's hour had come. The revenge so ardently longed-for
since the hour her mother had invoked the curse of heaven upon this man,
was here. What though his boy did perish, by an ignominous death. A more
worthless cumberer of the earth did not exist. Ah! that cold, sneering
voice on the winter's eve so long ago; her mother's tears! As he had
sown so should he reap, and her hands would help to gather in the
harvest. Through him they had been exiled all these years from the home
that was their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might
have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under
the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the
hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not
she;--his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could
_she_ lift a voice to save him! "His boy?" Ah, through her tender
mother's heart there darted a pain all unwonted. Her own noble, gifted
boy--her all--what if untoward fate should have in store for him some
doom of shame--him, her idol and her pride.

She sat buried in thought till suddenly starting up she consulted
a time table, then rang hurriedly for her maid. She was ready in thirty
minutes, and summoning her young son, was soon enroute for the capital.
Arriving at ten o'clock she called a carriage and sped away to new
northwest quarter of the city. By midnight she had seen both
representatives and thoroughly enlisted their services. She gave no
reason for her intercession, nor was it necessary. It was enough that
she deemed it a case for intervention. Next morning the two statesmen
had an interview with the President, and by the hardest, for the mass
of evidence against young Garrett was overwhelming, got a stay of
proceedings till the case could be further investigated.

Well-nigh exhausted