The Leopard's Spots (1902)/Book 3/Chapter 16
TWO days after McLeod's flight from Hambright the press despatches flashed from New York a startling two-column account of the attempted assassination of the Hon. Allan McLeod, the Republican leader of North Carolina, in the terrific campaign in progress, and that he was compelled to flee from the state to save his life.
Gaston was elected Governor by the largest majority ever given a candidate for that office in the history of North Carolina.
McLeod was promptly rewarded for his long career of villainy by an appointment as our Ambassador to one of the Republics of South America, and the Senate at once confirmed him. The salary attached to his office was $15,000, and his dream of a life of ease and luxury had come at last.
For six months he had been quietly going to Boston paying the most ardent court to Miss Susan Walker, whom he had met at her college at Independence. She was a matured spinster now appproaching sixty years of age, and worth $5,000 000 in her own name.
He had easy sailing from the first. He joined her church in Boston, after a brilliant profession of religion that moved Miss Walker to tears, for he had told her it was her love that had opened his eyes. And it was true.
McLeod timed his last visit to Boston so that he arrived the day the city was ringing with the sensation of his attempted assassination, and the desperate fight he was making to uphold law and order in the South.
When Miss Walker read that article in her paper she resolved to marry him immediately. She gave McLeod a wedding present of a half million dollars. He wept for joy and gratitude, and kissed her with a fervour that satisfied her hungry heart that he was the one peerless lover of the world.