Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/162

 offered. The assassin had dared to strike her father dead in her home, in her very presence.

Had the knife sought her own heart she would have felt less deeply the wound. Somewhere even by her side there stood amid the shadows of life a being who could thus insult her by ignoring her very existence! She resolved to make that man feel her power by paying the penalty with his own life. An element of pitiless cruelty in her character found for the first time its expression in a passionate thirst for the blood of this criminal.

She had seen every effort to penetrate the mystery fail with increasing inward rage. Larkin, who had charge of the Judge's campaign, had been aggressive and untiring for two weeks and then had given up and returned to his duties as Chairman of the State Executive Committee.

The Attorney General announced his departure for Washington and ordered the withdrawal of the troops and detectives.

Stella hastened to send her burning protest against his action. General Champion, who had been deeply moved by her beauty and evident suffering, called personally at the old Graham mansion for an interview. He received her indignant protests with the gravest courtesy.

"Please don't tell me, General," she began bitterly, "that my father's death is an apparently