It was a foolish scheme, a brutalizing thing to do, both from the point of view of affection and any corrective theory he might have had.  No good ever springs from violence.  But Butler did not see that.  He wanted to frighten Aileen, to bring her by shock to a realization of the enormity of the offense she was committing.  He waited fully a week after his word had been given; and then, one afternoon, when his nerves were worn almost thin from fretting, the climax came.  Cowperwood had already been indicted, and was now awaiting trial.  Aileen had been bringing him news, from time to time, of just how she thought her father was feeling toward him.  She did not get this evidence direct from Butler, of course—­he was too secretive, in so far as she was concerned, to let her know how relentlessly he was engineering Cowperwood’s final downfall—­but from odd bits confided to Owen, who confided them to Callum, who in turn, innocently enough, confided them to Aileen.  For one thing, she had learned in this way of the new district attorney elect—­his probable attitude—­for he was a constant caller at the Butler house or office.  Owen had told Callum that he thought Shannon was going to do his best to send Cowperwood “up”—­that the old man thought he deserved it.

In the next place she had learned that her father did not want Cowperwood to resume business—­did not feel he deserved to be allowed to.  “It would be a God’s blessing if the community were shut of him,” he had said to Owen one morning, apropos of a notice in the papers of Cowperwood’s legal struggles; and Owen had asked Callum why he thought the old man was so bitter.  The two sons could not understand it.  Cowperwood heard all this from her, and more—­bits about Judge Payderson, the judge who was to try him, who was a friend of Butler’s—­also about the fact that Stener might be sent up for the full term of his crime, but that he would be pardoned soon afterward.

Apparently Cowperwood was not very much frightened.  He told her that he had powerful financial friends who would appeal to the governor to pardon him in case he was convicted; and, anyhow, that he did not think that the evidence was strong enough to convict him.  He was merely a political scapegoat through public clamor and her father’s influence; since the latter’s receipt of the letter about them he had been the victim of Butler’s enmity, and nothing more.  “If it weren’t for your father, honey,” he declared, “I could have this indictment quashed in no time.  Neither Mollenhauer nor Simpson has anything against me personally, I am sure.  They want me to get out of the street-railway business here in Philadelphia, and, of course, they wanted to make things look better for Stener at first; but depend upon it, if your father hadn’t been against me they wouldn’t have gone to any such length in making me the victim.  Your father has this fellow Shannon and these minor politicians just where he wants them, too.  That’s where the trouble lies.  They have to go on.”