hope in
them. Events changed, crises came and went, portents loomed thick,
despair seemed omnipotent, failure and disgrace inevitable--but the
motto of Alleghenia remained the same. Steadfast, purposeful, and
commanding, it has endured through the trivial changes of political
significance which have been as impotent to sully the actuality of her
fair fame as are sun-spots to dim the radiance of the sun. It is only
natural, perhaps, that the discouragements which were but transient
should have seemed to me to be vital, damning, irremediable. Just as the
Israelites of old turned from the promises of God to worship Baal, so
have I turned from the assurance given me by these arms of Alleghenia,
to prostrate myself before false idols of doubt and despair. I should
have remembered how they called me, in the first instance, from a life
of idleness and ease, to fight my way through the desert of difficulty,
toward the promised land of honor. I should have remembered how in my
darkest hours they went before me as a pillar of fire, how in the famine
of my soul these words were the manna of encouragement, how in my thirst
they struck clear water from the rock of adverse circumstance. But the
Israelites came back to their true God at last; so I, little girl, to my
true ideal. The Law!--you said the word--the Law is the clue, the
keynote, the boundary between right and wrong!"

She was at his side, and he slipped one arm around her, and held her
close to him as with his finger he traced again the motto of Alleghenia.

"Do you know what this means?" he asked. "_Justitia_,--to be just to all
men, without fear or favor, lenient to our enemies, rigid and
unyielding, if need be, to our friends; putting aside personal
considerations, striving so far as in us lies to be impartial, merciful
in the face of prejudice, relentless in that of conviction--fair!
_Lex_,--to abide by the law, in spirit only if our inmost conviction
warrants that course, but in letter absolutely where there is the
smallest hint of doubt; secure in the knowledge that, however fallible
it be, it is the best that man has yet been able to do in imitation of
the immutable decrees of God. _Integritas_,--to be true to the oaths we
have sworn, faithful to the promises we have made, loyal to the office
intrusted to us by the people, to whom and for whom we are responsible.
Dearest, I am no mere man. Were I that, were I to consult my will alone,
and it lay, as now it lies, in my power to accomplish, Spencer Cavendish
should go free to-day. I know what he has done; I appreciate his
sacrifice; I see that by a single act he has accomplished what the rest
of us were powerless to cure; I admire his courage; I condone his crime;
I could forget all his weaknesses for the sake of this one great
evidence of his strength. And yet--listen to me, dearest!--in what he
strove to do he has failed utterly, if in removing a corrupt official
who made a mockery of Alleghenia's law he has not replaced him by one
who with all the force of his conscience and all the power of his
influence will see that law administered. And whatever we may say of his
crime, whatever its causes, whatever its wonderful results, it was and
is a crime. 'Thou shalt not kill!' God has said it; Alleghenia by the
voice of her law has ratified it. And not even the fact that Cavendish
has made possible all my fondest and worthiest hopes, the fact that he
has rescued from suffering all I hold most dear"--

Barclay suddenly covered his face with his free hand, as he had covered
it on that afternoon in Peter Rathbawne's library, weeks before; then he
looked up again, his lips trembling.

"Dearest," he said, "I am Governor of Alleghenia, and as such owe an
allegiance, an obedience, which personal prejudice cannot impugn. On
the day when you spoke to me of meeting Cavendish you pointed out the
course of a gentleman and a friend. On the night of the Ninth's
review you taught me the creed of an American and an Alleghenian.
To-day--unconsciously perhaps, but none the less surely--you have made
clear the duty of a public servant. God bless you, my life, my heart, my
conscience! May I be worthy of you and of the commonwealth I serve.
Where I doubted before, now I am sure. It is hard--God only knows how
hard--but listen to Alleghenia's bidding! _Justitia_, _Lex_,
_Integritas_,--equity, the code, and good faith, in the sight of God and
man, heaven and earth, the American people and the commonwealth of
Alleghenia. God save the state!"

"John," whispered the girl brokenly,--"John, you're right. God save the
state!"

Slowly, tenderly, the Governor of Alleghenia led her back to the table,
and taking up a pen, with a firm hand wrote five words, heavily
underscored, at the head of the Cavendish petition. And these were:--

       "_Disapproved._
                       _John Hamilton Barclay_,
                                           _Governor._"

Then, turning to the girl who loved him, he took her in his arms.