The next day the _Star_ and the _Reporter_ took up the hue and cry against him. "Too thin" was the _Star's_ headline, while the _Reporter_ denounced Beekman in scathing language; contended that in pardoning such a man as Ilingsworth the Governor had deliberately let loose on the community a murderer and an anarchist; and assured its readers that in refusing clemency to Wilkinson the Governor had in cowardice yielded to the popular clamour that someone should be made to suffer for the iniquitous methods of the great financiers of the present day. "The present incumbent at Albany is a blot on the escutcheon of the Empire State," the editorial concluded. "The sooner the blot is wiped out the better." The next day public opinion was swinging strongly against the Governor. And, on his own motion, Beekman was suspended from office until the charges against him had been tried. The next day Ougheltree's denial was ridiculed. What is more, the _Morning Mail_, Ougheltree's paper, did not dare to take up the cudgels in the Governor's behalf: it could no longer defend a man who was charged with being implicated with its chief, since to do so would be to admit its owner's part in the conspiracy. And yet Ougheltree was as innocent as a new-born babe of having written the incriminating letter. In short, Beekman was doomed. He had climbed the hill and for an instant had stood in the glory of the sunlight, only to find himself suddenly dashed down to the bottom at break-neck pace. But not even this satisfied Wilkinson. Closeted later with Flomerfelt in the big house on the Drive he ground his heel into the rug of his den, exclaiming: "Never until he wallows in the mud, Flomerfelt, will I let up on him!" And in all this what of Leslie? Irrefutable evidence had been presented to her of the Governor's unworthiness, and little wonder, then, that she had ranged herself upon her father's side. Nevertheless, there were times when she would shudder in silence. For out in the future it was certain that one of three things must happen to her father, and she dreaded any one of them. XX "I suppose there is some painless way of putting him to death?" The voice was Wilkinson's. He was seated on the veranda at Cobblestone, his Morris County place, and opposite to him sat a complacent, side-whiskered M. D. from Morristown. The complacence of the M. D. was due in great measure to the fact that a check reposed in his waistcoat-pocket. It was a goodly check, too; Wilkinson had been ailing, and the bill was heavy. "I don't want him to suffer at all," went on Wilkinson. "I merely want him to pass away and not feel it." "Humph! He's of no further use?" returned Dr. Parker Wetherell.