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prison, he wanted his financial friends to get together and see if they could get him out by
appealing to the Governor. The division of opinion among the judges of the State Supreme
Court was his excuse and strong point. He wanted Steger to follow this up, and he spared no
pains in trying to see all and sundry who might be of use to him--Edward Tighe, of Tighe & Co.,
who was still in business in Third Street; Newton Targool; Arthur Rivers; Joseph Zimmerman,
the dry-goods prince, now a millionaire; Judge Kitchen; Terrence Relihan, the former
representative of the money element at Harrisburg; and many others.
Cowperwood wanted Relihan to approach the newspapers and see if he could not readjust their
attitude so as to work to get him out, and he wanted Walter Leigh to head the movement of
getting up a signed petition which should contain all the important names of moneyed people
and others, asking the Governor to release him. Leigh agreed to this heartily, as did Relihan,
and many others.
And, afterwards there was really nothing else to do, unless it was to see Aileen once more, and
this, in the midst of his other complications and obligations, seemed all but impossible at times--
and yet he did achieve that, too--so eager was he to be soothed and comforted by the ignorant
and yet all embracing volume of her love. Her eyes these days! The eager, burning quest of him
and his happiness that blazed in them. To think that he should be tortured so--her Frank! Oh,
she knew--whatever he said, and however bravely and jauntily he talked. To think that her love
for him should have been the principal cause of his being sent to jail, as she now believed. And
the cruelty of her father! And the smallness of his enemies--that fool Stener, for instance, whose
pictures she had seen in the papers. Actually, whenever in the presence of her Frank, she fairly
seethed in a chemic agony for him--her strong, handsome lover--the strongest, bravest, wisest,
kindest, handsomest man in the world. Oh, didn't she know! And Cowperwood, looking in her
eyes and realizing this reasonless, if so comforting fever for him, smiled and was touched. Such
love! That of a dog for a master; that of a mother for a child. And how had he come to evoke it?
He could not say, but it was beautiful.
And so, now, in these last trying hours, he wished to see her much-- and did--meeting her at
least four times in the month in which he had been free, between his conviction and the final
dismissal of his appeal. He had one last opportunity of seeing her--and she him--just before his
entrance into prison this last time--on the Saturday before the Monday of his sentence. He had
not come in contact with her since the decision of the Supreme Court had been rendered, but
he had had a letter from her sent to a private mail-box, and had made an appointment for
Saturday at a small hotel in Camden, which, being across the river, was safer, in his judgment,
than anything in Philadelphia. He was a little uncertain as to how she would take the possibility
of not seeing him soon again after Monday, and how she would act generally once he was
where she could not confer with him as often as she chose. And in consequence, he was
anxious to talk to her. But on this occasion, as he anticipated, and even feared, so sorry for her
was he, she was not less emphatic in her protestations than she had ever been; in fact, much
more so. When she saw him approaching in the distance, she went forward to meet him in that
direct, forceful way which only she could attempt with him, a sort of mannish impetuosity which
he both enjoyed and admired, and slipping her arms around his neck, said: "Honey, you needn't
tell me. I saw it in the papers the other morning. Don't you mind, honey. I love you. I'll wait for
you. I'll be with you yet, if it takes a dozen years of waiting. It doesn't make any difference to me
if it takes a hundred, only I'm so sorry for you, sweetheart. I'll be with you every day through this,
darling, loving you with all my might."
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