The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 23, 1904, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. R oo el oo s e e e with & pistol had twisted out of Kent's gresp apd was gone in a flash. “By Jovel” sald Loring, breathing hard; “he wasn't a8 drunk as he seemed to be!” Kent drew down his cuffs and shook himself straight in his coat. “No, he wasn’t drunk at all. I guess he was the man you saw when we came out of the square.” Then, a8 a police- man came up puffing, “Let me do the talking; the whisky theory will be good enough for the newspapers.” UHAPTER XIX. Deep Sea Soundings. ‘Oof! I feel as if I had been dipped in & warm bath of conspiracy and hung to éry in the cold storage of nihil- If you take me to any more meet- ings of your committee of safety I shall be like the man without music in his soul—'fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.” Thus Penelope, after the breaking up of the Van Brock dinner party. Elinor bad elected to walk the few blocks in- tervening between Alameda square and jon avenue, and Ormsby had dis- ssed his chauffeur with the motor- nd it was going id the club- ou mustn't prattling ve heard to-night p pool of this tty difficult for 1 told you beforek to be a p se. “And either i to babble,” We e not 1is aboriginal des- and sharp- cicle in the it comes to sense enough New Hampshire side of him best,” Pen from a man . ol sort who have n if he proposes “I can ck to the laps hout ¥ by the dis- car, the fizz the p of one s darting hither and g if the -ime ful exploiting n growing on not to say ge beyond the first ¥ on the ard journey was lacking in nce; she serupu- th as an accepted he could not put e thing said oosening k ubjugation his stout heart ga ived up to them n it was of 'h concerned him most nd his plea was a gentle rep- { many oth'rs in the same om or, I have waited patiently for a long time, and I'll go on doing it, if that is what will come the nearest to pleasing you. But it would be & pro- digious comfort if I might be counting the days or the weeks. Are you still finding it impossible to set the limit?” She nodded slowly, and he took the next ep like 2 man feellng his way in the dark That i= as large an answer as you have ever given me, I think. Is there y speakable reason?” “You know the reason,” she sald, looking away from him. “I am not sure that I do. Is it be- cause the money-gods have been un- s—because these robber bar- looted your railroad?” No; that is only part of it—the smellest part “I hoped so: If you have too little, T have & good bit too much. But that corners’it in & way to make me sorry. I am not keeping my promise to win what you weren't able to give me at first.” “Please don’t put it that way., It there be any fault it is mine. You have left nothing undone.” The man of expedients ran over his cards reflectively and decided that the moment for playing his long suit was fully eome. “Your goodness of heart excuses me where I am to blame,” he qualified. “I am coming to believe that I have defeated my own cause.” “By being too good to me?” she suggested. “No; by running where I should heve been content to walk; by shack- ling you with a promise, and so in a certain sense becoming your javier. That is putting it rather clumsily, but tsn’t it true?” “I had never thought of it in that light,” she sald unresponsively. “You wouldn’t, naturally. But the fact remains. It has wrenched you: point of view hopelessly aside, don't you think? I have seen it and felt it «ll along, but I haven't had the cour- ege of my convictions.” “In what way?” she asked. “In the only way the thing can be rtood squarely upon jts feet. It's hard, desperately hard; and hardest of all for a man of my peculiar build. I am no longer what you would call a young men, Elinor, and I have never learned to turn back and begin all over again with any show of heartiness. They used to say of me in the Yacht Club that if 1 gained a half length in a race I'd hold it if it topk the sticks out of my boat.”, " she assented absently. the same way now. But e—or rather for the sake I am going to turn back You are free again, Elinor. of my love fm; once ALl T ask is that you will let me begin where 1 left off somewhere on the Hi‘ld between here and Boston last fall.” She sat with clasped hands looking for its fulfiliment. On the Friday morn- steadlly at the darkened windows of Ing there appeared in the Capital Tri- the opposite house. and he let her take bune, the Midland City Chrenicle, the her own time. When she spoke there Range County Maverick and the Agri- was a thrill in her voice that he had cultural Rural le editorials exoner- never heard before. ating the People’'s party, its policy and “I don't deserve it—so much consider- the executive, and heaping mountains ation I mean,” she sald; and he made of obloguy on the name of Duvall. haste to spare her. These editorials were so similar in tone, “Yes, you do; you deserve anything tenor and texture as pointedly to sug- the best man In the world can do for gest a common model—a coincidence you, and I'm a good bit ghort of that.” “But if I don’t want you to go back?" He had gained something—much more than he knew, and for a tremu- lous Instant he was near to losing it again by a passionate retraction of all he had been saying. But the cool pur- pose came to his ald in time. T should still insist on doing it. You gave me what you couid, but I want more, and I am willing to do what is necessary to win it.” Again she said: “You are too good to me,” and again he contradicted her. “No, it 1s hardly a question of good- ness; indeed, I am not sure that it escapes being selfish. But I am very much in earnest and I am going to prove it.- Three years ago you met a man whom you thought you could love —don’t interrupt me, please. He was like gome other men we know, he didn’t have the courage of his convictions. lacking the few dollars which might have made things more nearly equal. May 1 go on?”" “] guppose you have earned the right to say what you please,” was the im- truggle in which matched—of the they woman to preserve her poise; of the man to break it down. Another lover given up in despair, but by's strength lay in holding on in the face of all discouragements. “I beliew: much as I believe any- in this world, that you re mise in regard to your feelings for the other man,” he went on calmly. “But I want to be sure of that for yourself, ana you can’'t be sure unless you are free to choose between us.” *“Oh, don’t!—you shouldn’t say such things to me,” she broke out; and then he knew he was gaining ground. “Yes, I must. We have been stum- bling around in the dark all these months, and I mean to be the lantern- bearer for once in a way. You know, and I know, and Kent is coming to know. That man is going to be a success, Elinor: he has it in him, and he sha'n't lack the money-backing he may need. When he arrives—" She turned on him quickly, and the blue-gray eyes were suspiciously bright. “Please don’t bury me alive,” she begged. He saw what he had done; that the nicely calculated purpose had carried straight and true to its mark; and for a moment the mixed motives, which are at the bottom of most human sayings and doings, surged in him like the sea at the vexed tide-line of an iron-bound coast. But it was the bet- ter Brookes Ormsby that struggled up out of the elemental conflict. “Don’t mistake me,” he sald. “I am neither better nor worse than other men, I fancy. My motives, such as they are, would probably turn out to be purely selfish in the last analysis. I am proceeding on the theory that con- straint breeds the desire for the thing it forbids; therefore I remove it. Also, it is a part of that theory that the successful David Kent will not appeal to you as the unspoiled country lawyer did. No I'm not going to spoil him; if I were, I shouldn’t be telling you about it. But—may I be - brutally frank?—the David Kent who will come successfully out of this political prize fight will not be the man you have idealized.” There was a muttering of thunder in the air, and the cool precursory breeze of a shower was sweeping through the tree tops. “Shall we go into the house?” she- asked; and he took it as his dismissal. “You may; I have kept you up long enough.” And then, taking her hand: “Are we safely ashore on the new continent, Elinor? May I come and go as heretofore? “You were always welcome, Brookes; you will be twice welcome, now.” It was the first time she had ever called him by his Christian name and it went near to toppling down the carefully reared structure of self-re- straint. But he made shift to shore the tottering walls with a playful re- tort. “If that is the case, I'lll have to think up some more self-abnegations. Good-night.” . . CHAPTER XX. The Winning Loser. Editor Hildreth’s prophecy concern- ing the probable attitude of the admin- istration newspapers in the discussion of the ofl fleld affair waited but g day which was not allowed to pass unre- marked by Hildreth and other molders of public opinion on the opposite side of the political fence. But Hildreth did not pause at gener- alities. Two days after the Universal's triumph in the Belmount fleld the Ar- gus began to “‘hit it up” boldly toward the capitol, and two things came of it. The first was an attempt by some par- ty or parties unknown to buy up a con- trolling interest In the Argus. The sec- ond was the waylaying of David Kent in the lobby of the Clarendon Hotel by no less a personage than the Hon. Mel- ton Meigs, Attorney General of the State. In his first conversation with Ormsby, Kent had spoken of the three leading £pirits of the junta as from personal knowledge, but of the three Bucks, Hendricks and Meigs, the Attorney General was the least known ‘to him. Prior to his nomination on the State ticket Meigs had been best known as the most astute criminal l&wyer in the State, his astuteness lying not so much in his ability as a pleader as in a cer- tain oratorical gift by which he was able to convince not only a jury, but the public, of the entire innocence of his client. He was a small man physically, with womanish hands and feet and a beard- less face of that prematurely aged cast which is oftenest seen in dwarfs and precocious infants; and his distinguish- ing characteristic, the one which stuck longest in the mind of a chance ac- quaintance or a casual observer. was a am speaking quite frankly. That charge involves the reputation of men high in authority; but I shall be strong to do my sworn duty, Mr. Kent; I ask you to belleve that. Kent nodded and waved him om. “You will readfly understand the deli- cacy of the task and how, in the nature of things, I am handicapped and hedged up on every side. Evidence— of a kind to enable me to assall a popu- lar idol—is exceedingly difficult to pro- cure. t is,” saild Kent, grimly. “Exactly. But in revolving the mat- ter in my own mind I thought of you. You are known at the capitol, Mr. Kent, and I may say throughout the State, as the uncompromising antago- nist of the State administration. I have asked myself this: Is it possible that & cool-headed, resolute attorney like Mr. David Kent would move so far and 80 determinedly in this matter of an- tagonism without substantially paving the ground under his feet with evidence as he went along?” H Kent admitted that it was possible, but highly improbable. “So I decided,” was the smile-tem- pered rejoinder, “In that case it only remains for me to remind you of your public duty, Mr. Kent; to ask you in the name of justice and of the people of the State, to place your infornmgtio: 1» the hands of the public prosecutor. Kent's face betrayed nothing more than his appreciation of the confidence reposed in him by the man whose high sense of officlal honor was mak- ing him turn traitor to the party.lead- er who had dragged him through a successful election. “I have what evidence I need, Mr. Meigs,” he declared. “But if I make no secret of this, neither do I conceal the fact that the motive pro bono pub- lico has had little to do with its ac- cumulating. 1 want justice first for what might be called a purely private end, and I mean to have It.” “Precisely.” smiled the Attorney . “ I rmoverr £ covLD oLy PIEGS smile of ‘the congealea sort, which served to mask whatever emotion there might be behind it. Kent had seen little of Meigs since the latter had turned him down in the quo warranto matter, and his guard went up quickly when the Attorney General accosted him in the lobby of the hotel and asked for a private inter- view. “I am very much octupied just now, Mr. Meigs,” he demurred, “but if it is & matter of importance—" “It 1s; & matter of the greatest im- portance,” was the smooth-toned reply. “I am sure you will not regret it if you will give me a few moments, Mr. Kent.” Kent decided quickly. Being fore- warned, there was nothing to fear. “We will go up to my rooms, if you please,” he sald, leading the way to the elevator; and no other word was spoken untll they were behind closed doors on the fourth floor. “A prefatory remark ray make my business with you seem a little less singular, Mr. Kent,” Meigs began, when Kent had passed his cigar case and the Attorney General had apolo- gized for a weak digestive tract. “On wholly divergent lines and from wholly different motives we are both working toward the same end, I believe, and it has occurred to me that we might be of some assistance to each other.” Kent's rejoinder was a mute signal to the effect that he was attending. “Some little time ago you came to me as the legal representative of the stock- holders of the Transwestern Rallway Company and I did not find it possible at that time to meet your wishes in the matter of a quo warranto information questioning Judge MacFarlane's -elec- tion and status. You will admit, I pre- sume, that your demand was a little peremptory ?”* “I admit nothing,” said Kent, curtly.. “But for the sake of expediting present matters—" “Precisely,” was the smiling rejoin- der. “You will note that I sald ‘at that time.” TLater developments—more es- pecially this charge made openly by the public press of juggling with foreign corporations—have led me to belleve that as the public prosecutor I may have duties which transcend all other considerations—of loyalty to a party standard—oft—"" Kent took his turn at interrupting. “Mr. Meigs, there is nothing to be gained by indirection. May I ask you to g:rr‘n; to tthhe potlhnt?" “Briefly, then: the course pursued by Sénator Duvall in the Belmount affair leaves an unproved charge others; a charge which T am er- mined to sift tg the bottom—you see, I General. “And now we are beginning to see our way a little clearer. It is not too late for us to move in the quo warranto proceedings. If you will call at my office 1 shall be glad to reopen the matter with you.” “And tite price?” said Kent, shortly. “Oh, my dear sir! must we put it upon the ground of a quid pro quo? Rather let us say that we shall help each other. You are in a position to assist me very materially: I may be in a position to serve your turn. Come to my office to-morrow morning pre- pared to do your duty as an honest, loyal citizen, and you will find me quite willing to meet you half-way.” Kent rose and opened his watch. “Mr. Meigs, I have given you your opportunity, and you have seemed to glve me mine,” he said coolly. “Will you pardon me if I say that I can pad- dle my own canoe—if I ask you to as- sure his Excellency that one more de- vice of his to escape punishment has been tried and found wanting?” For & flitting moment the castiron smile faded from the impassive face of the Attorney General and an un- relenting devil came to peer out of the colorless eyes. Then Meigs rose cat- like and laid his hand on the door- knob. “Do I understand that you refuse to move In a matter which should be the first duty of a good citizen, Mr. Kent?” he asked purringly. “I certainly do refuse to fall into such a clumsy trap as you have been trying to bait for me, Mr. Meigs,” said David Kent, dropping back into his former curtness. The door opened slowly under the impulse of the slender womanish hand. “You have a task of some magni- tude before you, Mr. Kent. You can scarcely hope to accomplish it alone.” “Meaning that you would like to know if the fight will go on if I should chance to meet another drunken cow- boy with a better aim? It will” The door closed softly behind - the retreating figure of the Attorney Gen- eral, and Kent released the spring of the night latch. Then he went to the dropped portiere at the farther end of the room, drew it aside and looked in on a man who was writing at a table pushed out between the win- “You heard him, Loring?” he asked. i The ex-manager nodded. “They are hard pressed,” he sald. Then, looking up quickly: “You could name your price if you wanted to close ;fli_}h stock of goods in hand, Da- “I shall name when the time comes. Are you ready to go over to the Ar- gloflmwithmfl!wuttnuvzl ree-cornered talk with Hildreth. “In a minute. I will joln you in the lobby if you dom't want to walt. . . - . B . . . It was in the afternoon of the same day that Kent found a note in his key-box A&t the Clarendon, asking him to call up 124 Tejon avenue by telephope. He did it at once, and Penelope answered. The key-box note had been placed at Elinor’s re- quest, and she, Miss Penelope, could not say what ' was wanted; neither could she say definitely when her sis- ter would be in. Elinor had gone out an hour earlier with Mr. Ormsby and Miss Van Brock in Mr. Ormsby’'s motor-car. When was he, David Kent. coming up? Did he know they were talking of spending the re- mainder of the summer at Breezeland Inn? Apd where was Mr. Loring all this time? Kent made fitting -answers to all these querles, hung up the ear-piece and went away moodily reflective. He was due at a meeting of the executive committee of the Civic League, but he let the public business wait while he speculated upon the probable ob- ject of Elinor's telephoning him. Now there is no fleld in which the inconsistency of human npature s so persistent as in that which is bounded by the sentimentally narrowed horizon of a man in love. With Ormsby at the nodus of his point of view, David Kent made no secret of his open rivalry of the millionaire, declaring his intention boldly end taking no shame therefor. But when he faced about toward Elinor he found himself growing hotly jealous for her good faith; careful and fearful lest she should say or do something not strictly in accordance with the letter and spirit of her obligations as Orms- by's flancee. For example; at the “conspiracy din- ner.” as Loring dubbed it, Ormsby be- ing present to fight for his own nhana, Kent, ag we have seen, had boldly monopolized Miss Brentwood, and would have committed himself still more pointedly had the occasion favor- ed him. None the less, when Elinor had begged him privately to see her moving in the attack on the junta, he had almost resented the impligd estab- lishing of confidential relations with her lover’s open rival. For this cause he had been post- poning the promised visit, and thereby postponing the taking of the final step in the campaign of intimidation. The unexplgined telephone call decided him, however. He would go and see Elinor and have the ordeal over with. But as a preliminary he dined that evening with Ormsby at the Camelot Club and over the coffee had it out with him. “I'm going to see Miss Brentwood to- night,” he announced abruptly. “Have you any objection?"” The millionaire gave him the shrewd- est of overlooks, ending with a deep rumbling laugh. “Kent, you are the queerest lot I have ever discovered, and that is say- ing a good bit: Why, in the name of all the proprieties, should I object?” ‘“Your right is unchallenged,” Kent admitted. “Is it? Better ask Miss Brentwood about that. She might say it isn't.” “I don’t understand,” said Kent, dry- tongued. “Don’t you? Perhaps I'd better ex- plain. She might find it a little dif- ficult. You have been laboring under the impression that we are engaged, baven’t you?’ “Laboring under the—why. good heavens, man! it's in everybody's mouth!” “Curious, isn't it, how sudh things get about,” commented the player of long suits. “How do you suppose they et started?” v “I don’t suppose anything about it, so far as we two are concerned, I have your own word for it. You told me you were the man in possession.” Ormsby laughed 'again. “You are something of a bluffer yourself, David. Did you let my little stagger scare you out?” David Kent pushed his chair back from the table and nailed Ormsby with a look that would have made a younger man betray himself. “Do you mean to tell me that thers is no engagement between yourself and Miss Brentwood?” “Just that” Ormsby put all the nonchalance he could muster into the laconic reply, but he was anticipating the sequent demand which came like a shot out of a gun. “And there never has been?” Ormsby grinned. “When you are digging a well and have found your stream of water, it's folly to go deeper, David. Can't vou let ‘good enough’ alone?” t turned it over in his mind, frowning thoughtfully into his cof- fee cup. When he spoke it was out porch was chiefly of Breezeland Inn as a health and pleasure resort, until an outbound electric ¢ar stopped at t corner below and Loring came up make a quartet of the trio behind the vine-cavered trellis. Later the ex-manager confessed to a for music—Penelope 3 of the mid-heart of manliness. “I wish you would tell me ons thing, Ormsby. Am I responsible for —for the present state of affairs?” Ormsby stretched the truth a little; g.rtly for Elinor's sake; more, per- a) for Kent's. 'You have done nothing that an desire Honorable rival—and incidentally & good friend of mine—might not do. room and the piano, le Therefore you are not responsible.” and Kent to make the be f eac “That is putting it very diplomatic- other as the spirit moved th ally,” Kent mused. “I am afraid it It was nor’s ch e for speech does not exonerate me wholly.” with Kent—the of “Yes, it does. But it doesn’t put me out of the running, you under- stand. I'm ‘forninst’ you yet; rather more stubbornly than before, I fancy.” Kent nodded. ‘‘That, of course; I should think less of you if you were not. And you shall have as fair a show as you are giving me—which is saying a lot. Shall we go and smoke?” CHAPTER XXIL A Woman Intervenes. It was still early in the evening when Kent mounted the steps of the Brentwood apartment-house. Mother and daughters were all on the porch, but it was Mrs. Brentwood who wel- comed him. “We were just wondering if you would imagine the message which Eli- nor was going to send, and didn't, and come out to see what was wanted,” she said. “I am in need of a little legal advice. Will you give me a few minutes in the library?” Kent went with her obediently, but not without wondering why she had sent for him, of all the retainable law- yers in the capital. And the wond became amazement when she opened her confidence. She had received two letters from a new York broker who offered to buy her railroad stock at a little more than the market price. T the second letter she had replied, k- ing a price ten points higher than the market. At this the broker had ap- parently dropped the attempted nego- tiation, since there had been no more letters: What would Mr. Kent advise her to do—write again? Kent smiled inwardly at the good lady's definition of “legal advice,” but he rose promptly to the occasion. If he were in Mrs. Brentwood's place he would not write again; nor would he pay any attention whatever to any similar proposals from any source. Had there been any others? Mrs. Brentwood confessed that there had been; that a firm of Boston brok- ers had also written her. Did Mr. Kent know the meaning of all this anxiety to buy in Western Pacific when the stock was going down day by day? Kent took time for reflection before he answered. It was exceedingly dif- ficult to eliminate the personal factor in the equation. If all went well, if by due process of law the Transwestern should be rescued out ur the hands of the wreckers. the property would be a long time recovering from the wounds inflicted by the cut rates and the Guilford bad management. In con- sequence, any advance in the market value of the stock must be slow and uncertain under the skillfullest hand- “ling. But, while it might be advisable for Mrs. Brentwood to take what she could get, the transfer of the three thousand shares at the critical mo- ment might be the death blow to all his hopes in the fight for retrieval. Happlly, he hit upon the expedient of shifting the responsibility for the decision to other shoulders. “I scarcely feel competent to ad- vise you in a matter which is personal rather than legal,” he said at length. talked it over with Mr. ‘Have you Ormsby ?” Mrs. Brentwood's reply was openly ccntemptuous. “Brookes Ormsby doesn’t know any- thing about doliars. You have to ex- press it in millions before he can gr it. He says for me not to sell at price.” Kent shook his head. “I shouldn’t put it quite so strongly. At the same time, I am not the person to advise you.” The shrewd eyes looked up at him quickly. “Would you mind telling me why, Mr. Kent?"” “Not in the least. ested party. For weeks Mr. Loring and I have been striving by all means to prevernt transfers of the stock from the hands of the original holders. I don’t want to advise you to your hurt; but to tell you to sell might be to undo all that has been done.” “Then you are still hoping to get the rallroad out of Major Guilford's hands?” “Yes.” “And in that case the price of the stock will go up again?"” “That i{s just the difficulty. te a lopg time recovering.” “Doryou think the sale of my three thousand shares would make any dif- ference?” she asked. “There is reason to fear that it would make all the difference.” She was silent for a time, and when she spoke again Kent realized that he was coming to know an entirely un- suspected side of Elinor’'s mother. “It makes it pretty hard for me, she said slowly. “This little drib of railroad stoek is all that my girls have left out of what their father willed them. I want to save it if I can.” “So do 1,” said David Kent, frankly; “and for the same reason. 2 Mrs. Brentwood confined herself to a dry “Why?" “Because I have loved your elder daughter well and truly ever since that summer at the foot of Old Croydon, I am an inter- It may Mirs. Brentwood, and her happiness and well-being concern me very nearly. - “You are pretty plain-spoken, Mr. Kent. I suppose you know Elinor is to be married to Brookes Ormsby?” Mrs. Brentwood was quite herself again. Kent dexterously equivocated. “F know they have been engaged for some time,” he said; but the small quibble availed him nothing. “Which one of them was it told you it was broken off 7 she inquired. He smiled in spite of the increasing gravity of the situation. “You may be sure it was not Miss Elinor.” ‘““Humph!” sald Mrs. Brentwood. “She didn't tell me, either. 'Twas Brookes Ormsby, and he sald he want- ed to begin all over again, or some- thing of that sort. He is nothing but a foolish boy, for all his hair is getting thin.” “He i3 a very honorable man,” sald Kent. “Because he is giving you another chance? I don't mind telling you plain- 1y that it wen't do any good, Mr. Kent.” “Why?” he asked in his turn. “For several reasons—one is that Eli- nor will never marry without my eon- sent; another is that she can't afford to marry a poor man.” Kent rose. ‘I am glad to know how you feel about it, Mrs. Brentwood; nevertheless, I shall ask you to give your comsent some day, God willing.” * He expected an outburst of some sort and was telling himself that he had fairly provoked it when she cut the ground from beneath his feet. “Don’t you go off with any such fool- ish notion as that. David Kent,” she sald, not unsympathetically. “‘She's«in love with Brookes Ormsby, and she knows it now, if she didn't before.” And it was with this arrow rankling in him that Kent bowed himself out and went to join the young women on the porch. CHAPTER XXIIL A Borrowed Conscience. The conversation on the Brentwood pame—its only our you?” was c plicity of the thing to be s parted and an embarrassing craved. But now it ity had taken its place conditions Kent would have to see, her difficulty and made haste to effa fresh from the |ir Brentwood, and th was still rankling. M arrow less, None was the first to break away from tt commonplaces. he “What is the m: with u s evening?” r v A en doing i of; have I have ashar she confessed, looking away “WE want “Why—I ¢ had t indeed. - B at have bee 1 like the Are you avid pe not,” he protested gravely. d to say of me that I ma- rue say- lesperately I was a man grown make me tingle whe “Like wasting a whole I meant In I have have ev OW you measure suc- 1 of so many, many ink you are your e fact remains. t few months get a true for « -amp is only within that I have beg ling of th S things to be compel . She from him that T like you better d yourself. I ing discov er David 1 rather joy you are. And when you were sitting at Miss Brock’s table the other evening about your experience v ans I kept saying to my- didn’t know you—that L se!f that I had ver known you.” wish I knew just how to take he said ously. “T wish I knew how to make you understand,” she returned: and then: “I could have made the other David Fent understand.’ You in duty bound to try tc e this one understand, don’t you ou spoke of a danger which 8 not the violent k such as Lor- g fears. What is it “You h d two whole days,” Tlv‘n' rejoin Haven’'t you discovered “I have: but fai “That is t found anything to> fear was his reply. it; you have given it & true name—fallure.* “But I am not going to fail.” “You mean you are going te take railroad away from these men who have stolen it?" “That is what I mean.” “And you will do it by thrsatening to expose them?” “I shall tell Governor Bucks what I know about the ofl fleld deal, him that I shall publish the facts he doesn’t let the law take its course in ousting Judge MacFarlane and the recetver.” She rose and stood before leaning against one of the vine rpxorch pillars with her hands behind e R “David Kent, are there any cireum~ stances in which you would accept a bribe 2" e answered her in all serfeusness. “They say every man has his price; mine is higher than any bid they have yet made—or can make, I hope “Why don’t you let them bride she asked coolly. “Is it be- cause it 1s inexpedient—because there is more ‘success’ the other way?™ He tried to emulats her coclness and made a fallure of it “Haye I done anything te make yeu think I had thrown commeon hm? and self-respect overboard? he manded. Her answer was another question, sharp edged and well thrust home. “Is it any worse to take a bribe tham it is to give one? You have c:n ad- mitted that you are going to buy the Governor's neutrality, you know.” “I don’t see it In that light at all™ “The other David Kent would have seen it. He would have sald: These men are public criminals. If I can- not bring them to justice I can at least expose them to the scorn of all geod men. Therefore I have no right te bargain with them.” Kent was silent for a long time When he spoke it was to say: “Why have you done this, Elinor?™ “Because I had to, David. Could 1 do less?" “I suppose not. It's in the blood— in your bicod and mine. Other folk call it the Puritan virus of over- righteousness and scoff at it. I don’t know, sometimes I think they have the best of the argument.™ “I can’t believe you are quite sincere when you say that,” she asserted. “Yes, I am. One cannot com with conscience: that says itself. But I have come to believe latterly that one’s conscience may be morbidly acute, or even diseased. I'll admit I've been taking treatment.” “That sounds very dreadful,” she re- Joined. “It does, doesn't {t” Yet it had to be done. As I intimated a few minutes ago, my life has hitherto been a sort of unostentatious fallure. I used to think it was because I was outclassed: I know now it has been because ) wouldn't do as other men do. It has been a rather heart-breaking process —to rort out the scruples, admitting the just and overriding the others—but T have been given to see that it is the price of success.”™ “I want you to succeed,” she satd. “Pardon me; I dom’t think you de