he platform.

Frank restated the question for the benefit of the audience, and then
answered with indescribable pathos, "I cannot conceal the truth from
you; improbable as it seems, when once this poison becomes virulent in
the body politic it spares none, and the very women who have battled
most nobly against this corroding innovation are apt to succumb to its
insidious influence; even the anti-suffragist, home-loving, God-fearing,
modest and retiring as is her nature, has developed a talent for
political intrigue that has led to the downfall of more than one of the
best laid plans of mice and men."

He tried to go on, but the audience was convulsed, not so much by what
he said as by his manner, and by the sudden turning of the tables after
the long tension had reached the snapping point. Still uncertain whether
to regard his as friend or foe, Mrs. Briglow-Jorliss, after rapping
vainly for order, was obliged to dismiss the meeting, and by some irony
of fate the orchestra played "Hail Columbia," and the suffragettes took
up the words and sung them with much unction, especially the lines--

"Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost."

CHAPTER XIV

FAITH IS THE BASIS OF ALL PROGRESS

Early in June, Dr. Earl received a letter which puzzled him not a
little. It was complimentary in the extreme, and yet something back of
it made him say, "'For it is not an open enemy that hath done this.'"
The letter asked him to speak on "Mental Therapeutics" before a meeting
of one of the great medical societies of the city of New York; stated
that there would be no other speaker, but there would be an open
discussion after his address, and hoped he would find time to comply
with the request. Once he started to write his acceptance; twice he
actually wrote, declining, and then tore up both letters. It was true
that he was crowded for time, but he could make time, and in his heart
he knew perfectly well that he would have done so without a thought, but
for the unexpected complications which had occurred with Alice Bell.
Already he had heard one or two thinly veiled sneers at the result of
this much-lauded case. He had met Towers and Hershell, both of them
eminent in the profession, but the day before, and their greetings had
been singularly cool; once or twice at the club they both frequented
Morris had been little short of insulting, but his well-known
infatuation for Silvia Holland would account for