The voice of prayer softly died away and slowly the look of earth came back to the tired face. He turned his hollow cheeks to Benjamin with no attempt to mask the agony of his spirit, slowly rose and motioned him to a chair. The Secretary lifted his hand. "I'm restless. If you don't mind, I'll stand. I have marked three editorial attacks on you and your administration in three of the most powerful newspapers in the South--the Richmond _Examiner_, the Raleigh _Standard_ and the Charleston _Mercury_--read them please--and then I have something to say!" The President seated himself and read each marked sentence with care. "The same old thing, Benjamin--only a little more virulent this time--what of it?" "This! The success of our cause demands the suppression of these reptile sheets and the imprisonment of their editors--" "Would success be worth having if we must buy it at the cost of the liberties of our people?" Benjamin stopped short in his tracks. He had been walking back and forth with swift panther-like tread. "We are at war, Mr. President--fierce, savage, cruel, it's going to be. You have realized this from the first. The world will demand of us just one thing--success in arms. With this we win all. Lose this and we lose all--our liberties and a great deal more. Our coast is pierced now at regular intervals to the mouth of the Mississippi River--at Fortress Monroe in Virginia--the entire inland waters of North Carolina, Port Royal, South Carolina, Florida's line has been broken. Grant's army is swarming into Tennessee. McClellan is drilling three hundred thousand men in Washington to descend on Richmond. It's no time to nurse such reptiles in our bosom--" "I can't play the petty tyrant--" "They'll sting you to death--I warn you--no administration on earth can live in times of war and endure such infamous abuse as these conspirators are now heaping on your head. And mark you--they have only begun. The junta of disgruntled generals which they have organized will strangle the cause of the South unless you grip the situation to-day with a hand of steel. They are laying their plans in the new Congress to paralyze your work and heap on your head the scorn of the world." The President moved with a gesture of impatience. "I've told you, Benjamin, that I will not suppress these papers nor sign your order for the arrest of the editors. I am leading the cause of a great people to preserve Constitutional liberty. Freedom of speech is one of their rights--" "In times of peace, yes--but not in the crisis of war when the tongue of a fool may betray the lives of millions. I am not here merely to ask you to suppress these three treacherous rags--I'm here to ask a bigger and far more important thing. I want you to stop this inaugural ceremony to-day--" Davis rose with a quick excited movement. "What do you mean?"