Page:The Clansman (1905).djvu/125

 "Very well, my child, you need not be so solemn. What is it?"

"I've some friends in great distress—Mrs. Cameron, of South Carolina, and her daughter Margaret."

"Friends of yours?" he asked with an incredulous smile. "Where on earth did you find them?"

"In the hospital, of course. Mrs. Cameron is not allowed to see her husband, who has been here in jail for over two months. He can not write to her, nor can he receive a letter from her. He is on trial for his life, is ill and helpless, and is not allowed to know the charges against him, while hired witnesses and detectives have broken open his house, searched his papers, and are ransacking heaven and earth to convict him of a crime of which he never dreamed. It's a shame. You don't approve of such things, I know?"

"What's the use of my expressing an opinion when you have already settled it?" he answered, good-humouredly.

"You don't approve of such injustice?"

"Certainly not, my child. Stanton's frantic efforts to hang a lot of prominent Southern men for complicity in Booth's crime is sheer insanity. Nobody who has any sense believes them guilty. As a politician I use popular clamour for my purposes, but I am not an idiot. When I go gunning, I never use a pop-gun or hunt small game."

"Then you will write the President a letter asking that they be allowed to see Doctor Cameron?"

The old man frowned.

"Think, father, if you were in jail and friendless, and I were trying to see you"