'd rather
see McGrath himself at the capitol than that smooth-spoken skunk!"

He paused to relight his cigar, and then continued.

"The Rathbawne Mills are like the fruit of my own body to me. I love
them! I love every stone and brick of them, that I've put in place, as
it were, with my own hands. I've often thought that if they should burn
down it would come close to killing me. And yet I could watch them go
with a lighter heart, God knows, than that with which I foresee the
misery that's coming to these people of mine, who are going to starve at
the bidding of a band of black-legs, and that not even because they
think their cause a just one, but simply because they can't help
themselves. It isn't only that ruin's staring me in the face, though
there's that possibility in the situation, too, but that privation,
bitter misery, and despair are lying in wait for them. God!--what an
iniquity!

"But I _can't_ give in, Broadcastle--I _can't_ give in, John Barclay! It
means the sacrifice of a principle I've held out for, and that I know is
right. What's more, it isn't as if I were yielding one point. It would
only be the beginning. If I give in now, I might as well turn over the
mills to McGrath at once, and let him run them according to his own
blackguardly will. You know how such things go. Give them an inch"--

"And they raise a hell!" put in Colonel Broadcastle.

"Exactly! It's commercial suicide. And yet, if I _don't_ yield, I'm
precipitating disorder, and bloodshed, and the untold suffering of four
thousand souls. What am I to do?"

"Fight 'em!" said Colonel Broadcastle, with a sharp nod of his head.

Rathbawne turned from him to the Lieutenant-Governor, and to the latter,
knowing the man he had been, there was something indescribably
heart-rending in the sudden, irresolute trembling of his half-raised
hands, the slow shake of his head, and the pathos of his raised eyebrows
and drooping lips.

"John," he said, "I'm an old man, and you're a young one, but I'm a
plain citizen, and you're the Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia. You
know how things stand. Now, I've given you my girl, and after that it's
not much to put myself into your hands as well. I'm getting on. My
strength isn't what it was. I'm not as fit to stand such a struggle as
this is bound to be, as I was thirty years ago. I look strong, but, in
reality, I'm not. My doctor has warned me, more than once. A sudden
shock--you know what these medical chaps