"Peter," he said softly, "how much money have you squandered on this business in the last year--since you were indicted, convicted and so forth. I mean outside of what you haven't paid me and of what I know about?" Wilkinson grunted in disgust. "Ten, I should say." "Millions?" His client fumed and nodded. Morehead made a gesture of impatience which included the other. "Didn't I warn you, Peter, that it would be of no use? That at the end of the race you'd find yourself with a ten-years' sentence staring you in the face. You might have saved your money, or given it to me, preferably the latter course." "Oh, come, Morehead, what's the use of these post mortems of yours! Let's get to work. How much time have we got?" "I can get a few certificates of reasonable doubt--that part's all right--run it along for months yet. We've got to concede, however, that they shoved it along mighty quick. What I'm trying to figure out is whether we hadn't better apply to Beekman now--strike while the iron's hot. For that opinion will make him mad, and if so, now is our time...." "Sure it's our time, Colonel; let's do it right away." Morehead slipped into the next room and adjusted the window-shade. "The light is a little better, now, Miss Leslie. I want you to like that picture. If you like it well enough, maybe I'll give it to you one of these days...." Leslie smiled her gratitude, glancing anxiously at the same time into the next room. "Can I go back to father now?" she asked. "Of course, I came to get you," said Colonel Morehead; and when they were back in the room in which her father waited, the Colonel, lounging easily in his seat, went on to confide to her the fact that her father was at last in desperate straits; that this opinion constituted his last chance with the courts. "Your father and I have been talking it over," he said in a tone of finality; "and the hand of the National Banks sticks up like a sore finger all through the case. It's an outrage! We've decided that this is the proper time and the proper case to present to Governor Beekman for pardon. What do you think ...?" At first, while Morehead was explaining, as well as he knew how, the unpleasant situation that her father was in, Leslie had half-risen in her chair, her face growing white; but at the lawyer's concluding words her colour came back. "Why, I--I never thought of that!" she cried out, her troubles slipping from her suddenly. Colonel Morehead smiled at her until she lowered her eyes in confusion. Afterwards he deigned to explain that neither had they until just now. "Providence," put in Wilkinson, winking at Colonel Morehead, "seems to be on our side--the appellate courts to the contrary notwithstanding." "The right shall prevail," quoth Morehead, unblushingly. "Isn't it funny," exclaimed Leslie, "that none of us ever thought of this before!"