'Oh'. She accepted this vaguely. 'You have then become a writer, as you meant to be.'

'Not as I meant to be'. He laughed. 'Not yet. But I shall'. 'Tell me truly'—she turned on him with sudden vehemence. 'Do you think it is going all right—for Father, I mean? I hear so many conflicting opinions. I dare not know what to believe. I can't always understand what happens in there'. She pointed to the Capitol. 'It goes on and on. There is so much legal talk. They all contradict each other. And that beast of a Wilkinson—how can they listen to his monstrous lies!'

If they are lies, thought Irving cynically. But he had no admiration for Wilkinson, and, though he did have many doubts about Aaron's guilt and ultimate fate, he could at least give her one truthful reassurance.

'Your father is superb. I admired him particularly at his first encounter with the General in court. Colonel Burr looked him full in the face with one of his piercing regards, swept his eye over his whole person from head to foot as if to scan his dimensions, then coolly resumed his former position. There was no appearance of study or restraint in it, no affectation of disdain or defiance, nothing but a slight expression of contempt. I know of no other man who could have withered a treacherous enemy so cleverly. The General, for all his bombast, collapsed like a balloon.'

'Oh, I know!' she cried. 'Father is wonderful, always. But you haven't answered my question. There can't be any doubt of the outcome, can there? Sometimes——' Her voice sank. She shut her lips over the rest of her sentence: 'I can't help feeling frightened'. That would have been disloyalty, disobedience to Aaron's express commands. She had forgotten for a moment that Irving was a journalist : one of the howling pack that had already done their best to rend Aaron.

'How silly of me to ask such questions!' She straightened, and her voice had a false briskness that Irving thought pathetic. 'Of course there is no doubt of the outcome. An innocent man cannot be convicted. I mean simply, how does it appear to you as an observer? You will, I trust, furnish your paper with an unprejudiced account.'

'Most certainly,' he answered kindly, glad that this committed him to nothing. He moistened his lips, considering best how to find the answer to a multitude of questions which plagued him. Where was her husband? Had they really been on Blennerhassett's Island or no? Above all, what, in so far as she knew them, had been Colonel Burr's real intentions? She held the key to all these matters. Matters he and his confrères had speculated upon and discussed pro and con night after night, after the day's session was ended. He ached with curiosity.