had only tenderness and pity. She could not shut out the dreadful facts of the case, but it had been enough for her that Laura had said, in their first interview, “mother, I did not know what I was doing.” She obtained lodgings near the prison and devoted her life to her daughter, as if she had been really her own child. She would have remained in the prison day and night if it had been permitted. She was aged and feeble, but this great necessity seemed to give her new life.
The pathetic story of the old lady’s ministrations, and her simplicity and faith, also got into the newspapers in time, and probably added to the pathos of this wrecked woman’s fate, which was beginning to be felt by the public. It was certain that she had champions who thought that her wrongs ought to be placed against her crime, and expressions of this feeling came to her in various ways. Visitors came to see her, and gifts of fruit and flowers were sent, which brought some cheer into her hard and gloomy cell.
Laura had declined to see either Philip or Harry, somewhat to the former’s relief, who had a notion that she would necessarily feel humiliated by seeing him after breaking faith with him, but to the discomfiture of Harry, who still felt her fascination, and thought her refusal heartless. He told Philip that of course he had got through with such a woman, but he wanted to see her.
Philip, to keep him from some new foolishness, persuaded him to go with him to Philadelphia; and, give his valuable services in the mining operations at Ilium.
The law took its course with Laura. She was indicted for murder in the first degree and held for trial at the summer term. The two most distinguished criminal lawyers in the city had been retained for her defence, and to that the resolute woman devoted her days with a courage that rose as she consulted with her counsel and understood the methods of criminal procedure in New York.
She was greatly depressed, however, by the news from Washington. Congress adjourned and her bill had failed to pass the Senate. It must wait for the next session.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
It had been a bad winter, somehow, for the firm of Pennybacker, Bigler and Small. These celebrated contractors usually made more money during the session of the legislature at Harrisburg than upon all their summer work, and this winter had been unfruitful. It was unaccountable to Bigler.
“You see, Mr. Bolton,” he said, and Philip was present at the conversation, “it puts us all out. It looks as if politics was played out. We’d counted on the year of Simon’s reelection. And, now, he’s reelected, and I’ve yet to see the first man who’s the better for it.”
“You don’t mean to say,” asked Philip, “that he went in without paying anything?”
“Not a cent, not a dash cent, as I can hear,” repeated Mr. Bigler, indignantly. “I call it a swindle on the state. How it was done gets me. I never saw such a tight time for money in Harrisburg.”
“Were there no combinations, no railroad jobs, no mining schemes put through in connection with the election?
“Not that I knew,” said Bigler, shaking his head in disgust. “In fact it was openly said, that there was no money in the election. It’s perfectly unheard of.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Philip, “it was effected on what the insurance companies call the ‘endowment,’ or the ‘paid up’ plan, by which a policy is secured after a certain time without further payment.”
“You think then,” said Mr. Bolton smiling, “that a liberal and sagacious politician might own a legislature after a time, and not be bothered with keeping up his payments?”
“Whatever it is,” interrupted Mr. Bigler, “it’s devilish ingenious and goes ahead of my calculations; it’s cleaned me out, when I thought we had a dead sure thing. I tell you what it is, gentlemen, I shall go in for reform. Things have got pretty mixed when a legislature will give away a United States senatorship.”
It was melancholy, but Mr. Bigler was not a man to be crushed by one misfortune, or to lose his confidence in human nature, on one exhibition of apparent honesty. He was already on his feet again, or would be if Mr. Bolton could tide him over shoal water for ninety days.
“We’ve got something with money in it,” he explained to Mr. Bolton, “got hold of it by good luck. We’ve got the entire contract for Dobson’s Patent Pavement for the city of Mobile. See here.”
Mr. Bigler made some figures; contract so much, cost of work and materials so much, profits so much. At the end of three months the city would owe the company three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars-two hundred thousand of that would be profits. The whole job was worth at least a million to the company — it might be more. There could be no mistake in these figures; here was the contract, Mr. Bolton knew what materials were worth and what the labor would cost.
Mr. Bolton knew perfectly well from sore experience that there was always a mistake in figures when Bigler or Small made them, and he knew that he ought to send the fellow about his business. Instead of that, he let him talk.
They only wanted to raise fifty thousand dollars to carry on the contract — that expended they would have city bonds. Mr. Bolton said he hadn’t the money. But Bigler could raise it on his name. Mr. Bolton said he had no right to put his family to that risk. But the entire contract could be assigned to him — the security was ample — it was a fortune to him if it was forfeited. Besides Mr. Bigler had been unfortunate, he didn’t know where to look for the necessaries of life for his family. If he could only have one more chance, he was sure he could right himself. He begged for it.
And Mr. Bolton yielded. He could never refuse such appeals. If he had befriended a man once and been cheated by him, that man appeared to have a claim upon him forever. He shrank, however, from telling his wife what he had done on this occasion, for he knew that if any person was more odious than Small to his family it was Bigler.
“Philip tells me,” Mrs. Bolton said that evening, “that the man Bigler has been with thee again to-day. I hope thee will have nothing more to do with him.”
“He has been very unfortunate,” replied Mr. Bolton, uneasily.
“He is always unfortunate, and he is always getting thee into trouble. But thee didn’t listen to him again?”
“Well, mother, his family is in want, and I lent him my name — but I took ample security. The worst that can happen will be a little inconvenience.”
Mrs. Bolton looked grave and anxious, but she did not complain or remonstrate; she knew what a “little inconvenience” meant, but she knew there was no help for it. If Mr. Bolton had been on his way to market to buy a dinner for his family with the only dollar he had in the world in his pocket, he would have given it to a chance beggar who asked him for it. Mrs. Bolton only asked (and the question showed that she was no mere provident than her husband where her heart was interested),
“But has thee provided money for Philip to use in opening the coal mine?”
“Yes, I have set apart as much as it ought to cost to open the mine, as much as we can afford to lose if no coal is found. Philip has the control of it, as equal partner in the venture, deducting the capital invested. He has great confidence in his success, and I hope for his sake he
