ad
been bought at a price. The odium.... A flirt of the devil's tail
brought a new thought to his fevered brain--fevered by remorse and the
effects of long-continued and unwonted alcoholic stimulants. Suppose
that he did not vote? Suppose that he kept this fortune (he counted it
over to assure himself of its reality), pleading his sickness until the
last day of the session, and go ... go.... The thought swung him to
uneasy sleep.

While he slept the doctor and the senator from Chouteau came into the
room as they returned from the cemetery. Blair had been too much
occupied in his dizzy thought to remember to hide his ill-gotten money,
and on the white counterpane lay those proofs of Burroughs' infamy.

"Thirty thousand dollars!" gasped the doctor, in undertones, counting
the large bills and sheafing them in one trembling hand. "What shall we
do?"

"Nothing," responded Danvers, very quietly. "When Charlie wakes I will
talk with him. I do not believe that he will keep that money or vote for
Burroughs."

"How fortunate that Winifred did not come in with us!" said the older
man. "You stay here, Phil, and I will keep her away for an hour. He will
not sleep long. He is too feverish." Danvers nodded acquiescence, and
the physician tiptoed away.

Before many minutes the sick man awoke. Danvers sat near the bed,
reading the evening paper. Blair looked around with the impersonal eyes
of the sick, then saw the pile of bank notes on the stand beside his
bed. He started and gave a furtive look at Philip. Their eyes met
squarely.

"You will send that money back, Charlie." The words were not so much
query as certainty. Blair, shamed, was long in replying.

"I can't afford to, Danvers," he said finally. "I'm not only a poor man,
but a ruined one as well. I may keep it and--get out of the State."

"And vote for Bob Burroughs?" The head of the opposition still kept his
calm acceptance of his discovery. Curiously enough it threshed the sick
senator, after a few words, into stubborn silence.

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't. I have the money, and Bob or Bill will
never dare to ask for it back. If you ever see me in the Assembly again
you'll know that I'm going to vote for Burroughs--curse him!"

"Let me have that money, Charlie," Danvers pleaded. "Think of your
sister. It will break her heart if you do this thing. And," he continued
huskily, for he suddenly found that he could not control his voice,
"hearts enough have been bro