l--the proprietor of the Pelican Hotel had confessed
that the Throne Room had not been engaged for the coming session.

Was it possible that Jethro Bass lay crushed under the weight of the
accusations which had been printed, and were still being printed, in the
Newcastle Guardian? He did not answer them, or retaliate in other
newspapers, but Jethro Bass had never made use of newspapers in this way.
Still, nothing ever printed about him could be compared with those
articles. Had remorse suddenly overtaken him in his old age? Such were
the questions people we're asking all over the state--people, at least,
who were interested in politics, or in those operations which went by the
name of politics: yes, and many private citizens--who had participated in
politics only to the extent of voting for such candidates as Jethro in
his wisdom had seen fit to give them, read the articles and began to say
that boss domination was at an end. A new era was at hand, which they
fondly (and very properly) believed was to be a golden era. It was,
indeed, to be a golden era--until things got working; and then the gold
would cease. The Newcastle Guardian, with unconscious irony, proclaimed
the golden era; and declared that its columns, even in other days and
under other ownership, had upheld the wisdom of Jethro Bass. And he was
still a wise man, said the Guardian, for he had had sense enough to give
up the fight.

Had he given up the fight? Cynthia fervently hoped and prayed that he
had, but she hoped and prayed in silence. Well she knew, if the event in
the tannery shed had not made him abandon his affairs, no appeal could do
so. Her happiest days in this period were the Saturdays and Sundays spent
with him in Coniston, and as the weeks went by she began to believe that
the change, miraculous as it seemed, had indeed taken place. He had given
up his power. It was a pleasure that made the weeks bearable for her.
What did it matter--whether he had made the sacrifice for the sake of his
love for her? He had made it.

On these Saturdays and Sundays they went on long drives together over the
hills, while she talked to him of her life in Brampton or the books she
was reading, and of those she had chosen for him to read. Sometimes they
did not turn homeward until the delicate tracery of the branches on the
snow warned them of the rising moon. Jethro was often silent for hours at
a time, but it seemed to Cynthia that it was the silence of peace--o