the National Committee
and certain senators held discussions on the subject, in which I shared.
The end was that towards the close of the session the head of the
committee, accompanied by two senators, came to me and told me that I
must abandon my opposition to the Steamship Subsidy. They made no open
avowal of their reasons, and I did not press for one. Their declaration,
as the responsible heads of the organization, that certain action on my
part was essential to the interests of the party, satisfied me. I did
not consider myself at liberty to persist in a mere private opinion in
regard to a measure about which I recognized the extreme likelihood of
my being in error. I accordingly reported the bill, and voted for it, as
did a large majority of the party. Mrs. Baker is mistaken in saying
that the money was paid to me. If it was paid at all, of which I have no
knowledge except from this letter, it was paid to the representative of
the National Committee. I received no money. I had nothing to do with
the money further than as I might draw my own conclusions in regard to
the subsequent payment of the campaign debt."

Mrs. Lee listened to all this with intense interest. Not until this
moment had she really felt as though she had got to the heart of
politics, so that she could, like a physician with his stethoscope,
measure the organic disease. Now at last she knew why the pulse beat
with such unhealthy irregularity, and why men felt an anxiety which they
could not or would not explain. Her interest in the disease overcame
her disgust at the foulness of the revelation. To say that the
discovery gave her actual pleasure would be doing her injustice; but the
excitement of the moment swept away every other sensation. She did not
even think of herself. Not until afterwards did she fairly grasp the
absurdity of Ratcliffe's wish that in the face of such a story as this,
she should still have vanity enough to undertake the reform of politics.
And with his aid too! The audacity of the man would have seemed sublime
if she had felt sure that he knew the difference between good and evil,
between a lie and the truth; but the more she saw of him, the surer she
was that his courage was mere moral paralysis, and that he talked about
virtue and vice as a man who is colour-blind talks about red and green;
he did not see them as she saw them; if left to choose for himself he
would have nothing to guide him. Was it politics that had caused th