al."

But Mrs. Hilliard, whose sense of humor was sluggish this morning,
rejoined bitterly;--

"The row will fall to me."

"He needn't know your part in this--the matter of the votes; and as for
the other thing--well, after all, he is your husband, hard and fast, and
you'd best try and patch things up."

She straightened, flashing him a stony look, and he braced himself for a
hurricane; but to his equal discomfiture she went down beside the shaft
in a passionate fit of weeping.

"I should be under here," she sobbed; "I should be under here."

Shelby, tingling to be gone, shifted from foot to foot, and offered some
blundering solace which she put away.

"You've ceased to care," she accused.

He protested, adding indiscreetly that she had done too much for him for
that.

"You've filled the place he should have filled!"

Shelby was silent, goaded to torture by the lapse of precious minutes.

"There's only blackness ahead!"

"Don't take the dark view," entreated Shelby, groping desperately for a
bright one. "The man can't live always--so much older than you--and
then--your life's your own--"

The bowed figure shuddered.

"It's a dreadful thing to do--but I've thought that, too. I can't help
it. You--you are the real one--the real one--" She waited.

"Yes." It was screwed from him.

"The real one--and if--I know I don't need your promise--but if--"

"Yes, yes; of course if--"

Neither of them would name the contingency. Shelby contrived a
leave-taking, and bounded down the terraced slopes. It was quite noon
when he reached the Tuscarora House, but without a thought of food, he
got his horse and buggy from the livery, speeding the harnessing with his
own hands, and whipped away for Little Poland.

On reaching the Hilliard quarries he confronted unexpected obstacles.
The men had quitted work and scattered to their homes, and Kiska was to
be discovered neither in nor around the little office. However, the
Polish lad in temporary charge, Kiska's own son, was not slow to
recognize the original of the campaign lithograph which in his home
enjoyed honors second only to a highly-colored Madonna, and went flying
in search of his father. Shelby took instant advantage of his absence to
telephone Bowers, whom he luckily located at his midday meal. He learned
that the handbills had been sown broadcast with encouraging effect, and
that the general opinion of the voting public leaned toward unbelief.
Shel