he chairman wishes to make a
personal explanation relative to the claim."

"Kitty," said Elk MacNair, in a coarse whisper, "my brother has broken
my heart!"

"Stay!" said Miss Dunlevy; "he staggers in his seat as if he were
about to fall. A page has run to him with a letter. He reads it. Elk,
for Heaven's sake, go to his help! He is dying!"

There was a rush of members about the new chairman of committee.
Confusion reigned upon the floor of Congress. The lobby brother had
apprehended it all. He cleared the gallery at a run, passed a familiar
doorkeeper like a dart, and raised his senior to his breast.

"Arty," he whispered, "may Heaven forgive me! I repent of my folly and
wickedness, and entreat you to speak to me!"

"Heaven has forgiven you, Elk MacNair!" muttered the spent
Congressman. "Your father's friend has spared your fame and my
feelings at the expense of his fortune. It has taken the bank of Jabel
Blake--the dream of his life--to save you from a dishonored name, and
to give you a wife too worthy for you!"

He put a piece of paper in the lobbyist's hands. It said:

"Arthur, I have given you the last gift in my power--a
costly and a dear one--to keep your brother from disgrace,
and to save you both remorse. I have bought the ---- claim,
and destroyed it, but Ross Valley has lost the bank.

"JABEL BLAKE."

V.

On the terrace of the Capitol, while all this was occurring, a gaunt,
gigantic, aged figure might have been seen, looking away into the city
basking in the plain at his feet, with almost the bitterness of
prophecy. He carried an old worn carpet-bag, and a railroad ticket
appeared in his hat-band. It was Jabel Blake, shaking the dust of the
capital city from his feet!

To him the soft and purple panorama brought no emotions, as pride of
country or aesthetic associations; and even the bracing savor of the
gale upon the eminence seemed laden, to his hard regard, with the
corruptions and excesses of a debauched government and a rank society.
The river, to him, was but the fair sewer to this sculptured
sepulchre. The lambent amphitheatre of the inclosing ridges was like
the wall of a jail which he longed to cross and return no more. He saw
the dark granite form of the Treasury Department, and groaned like one
whose heart was broken there. The bank of Ross Valley was never to be!

Jabel thought in one instant of the inquiries which should