ant, and, finally the Colonel:--

"Take your post, sir!"

But his thoughts were anywhere and everywhere else. What a farce it all
was, this life which he was leading, this mental and moral martyrdom to
an impossible hope, this eternal and heart-sickening ordeal of hope
deferred, this waiting, waiting, waiting, for something which never
would and never could happen! Rotten, rotten to the core, this state for
which he would have given his heart's blood, and not only rotten, but
not caring a whit for her rottenness--glorying rather, in her own
degradation. The chief executive had flung back into their very faces
the appeal to his conscience of the most influential men in Kenton
City; the police, even now seated about their station stoves, were
sniggling at the predicament of the public which paid them for its
protection against precisely the kind of thing which they openly
tolerated and encouraged; yes, and even the militia, the guarantee of
law and order, Broadcastle's own command, were decked out in tinsel and
pipeclay, strutting to music in a palpable bid for applause and
admiration. And yonder--the tide of anarchy was slowly but surely rising
about the Rathbawne Mills, presaging riot, bloodshed, God alone knew
what!--but one thing, inevitably,--the absolute downfall of dignity and
rout of decency in Alleghenia!

Suddenly, his old intrepid spirit of resolution reasserted itself, but
doubtfully, like the flame of a lamp flaring once out of dimness before
it dies forever. Was it for this that he had devoted the best thought of
his youth and his earlier manhood to plans for the betterment of his
state? Should he now, at this, the hour of her supremest political and
moral peril, desert her as irredeemable, and join the ranks of those who
sneered at her, and pointed mocking fingers at her shame and nakedness?

"Your loquacity faintly suggests that of a mummy," said Natalie, at his
side.

"I was alone with my thoughts," answered the Lieutenant-Governor,
turning to her with an attempt at a smile, "and pretty black ones they
were, at that!"

"Alleghenia again?"

"Alleghenia again--and always. This business is becoming an obsession
with me. I haven't had a chance to tell you, and I can't very well
explain now. I'll have to leave it till I see you to-morrow. But
something happened to-day which drove another nail--and one of the
last!--into the coffin of my faith. There's not a gleam of hope
anywhere."

"Don't you see h