und for Tuscarora, too?" he inquired.

"I'm going home."

"Which train?"

Sprague named his train after a leisured moment's study of an
illustration.

"That's my own--or will be, rather, till Albany, where our car gets its
own engine. I'm in for a day or two's campaigning with his Excellency;
rear end speeches, and that sort of thing, you know."

The editor was unimpressed.

"If you care to drop in, I'll introduce you to the governor."

"Thanks, no. We've met."

Shelby's color mounted under repeated rebuff, and his self-respect was
nil; but a sincere desire to shield the woman whose folly he had abetted,
rose beside the spectre of defeat to drive him on.

"See here, Sprague," he said abruptly; "that was an awkward thing last
night--"

"To see me?"

"The general look of it," came laboriously. "You understand I--she--"

"Excuse _me_," put in the editor, dropping his magazine and backing off.

Shelby anchored him by a lapel.

"We've got to have this out. I want you to understand that she was
unwell--despondent--malaria, you know--and resorted to--"

"Laughing gas is your plausible defence."

Shelby went brick-red.

"Be a gentleman," he said.

"Gad!" Sprague quenched a wry smile. "And from you! What are you
after?"

"Are you going to use this?"

Volney Sprague started, glared, and fell to violent polishing of his
eye-glasses.

"After all," Shelby blundered on, "she has been your friend--entertained
you--the club and all that--and you couldn't--"

"Did she send you to me?" broke in Sprague, fiercely.

"She? No. I'm responsible. I thought perhaps you--it's been a bitter
political fight--you might be tempted--I admit it is a temptation--to
make capital--"

"Gad!" The editor spat out his favorite ejaculation as if it were a toad.

"We ought to spare her--to spare a woman."

"Don't, don't, don't," protested Sprague. "Can't you see--can't you see
that no decent man--no; you couldn't see that. Use a thing of this sort?
Faugh!" He swung on his heel and plunged through a nearby doorway to the
open air.

The result was tangible, but he had paid for it with the most abasing
quarter-hour of his life, and Shelby, too, craved another atmosphere.
And he obtained it. The governor, his private secretary, one or two
members of his staff, a state senator popularly known as "Handsome"
Ludlow, and the newspaper correspondents who were to accompany the party,
were clustered sociably in the obse