wild wish to destroy it. He loved controlling John
Grier's business. Never had anything absorbed him so. Life seemed a new
thing. The idea of disappearing from the place where, with a stroke
of his fingers, he moved five thousand men, or swept a forest into the
great river, or touched a bell which set going a saw-mill with its many
cross-cut saws, or filled a ship to take the pine, cedar, maple, ash or
elm boards to Europe, or to the United States, was terrible to him. He
loved the smell of the fresh-cut wood. The odour of the sawdust as he
passed through a mill was sweeter than a million bunches of violets.
Many a time he had caught up a handful of the damp dust and smelt it, as
an expert gardener would crumble the fallen flowers of a fruit tree and
sniff the sweet perfume. To be master of one of the greatest enterprises
of the New World for three years, and then to disappear! He felt he
could not do it.

His feelings shook his big frame. The love of a woman troubled his
spirit. Suppose the will were declared and the girl was still free, what
would she do?

As he set foot in the office of the firm of Belloc, however, he steeled
himself to composure.

His task well accomplished, he went back to his own office, and spent
the day like a racehorse under the lash, restive, defiant, and reckless.
When night and the shadows came, he sat alone in his office with drawn
blinds, brooding, wondering.

CHAPTER XXI. THE SECRET MEETING

As election affairs progressed, Mrs. Grier kept withdrawn from public
ways. She did not seek supporters for her son. As the weeks went on,
the strain became intense. Her eyes were aflame with excitement, but
she grew thinner, until at last she was like a ghost haunting familiar
scenes. Once, and once only, did she have touch with Barode Barouche
since the agitation began. This was how it happened:

Carnac was at Ottawa, and she was alone, in the late evening. As she sat
sewing, she heard a knock at the front door. Her heart stood still. It
was a knock she had not heard for over a quarter of a century, but it
had an unforgettable touch. She waited a moment, her face pale, her eyes
shining with tortured memory. She waited for the servant to answer the
knock, but presently she realized that the servant probably had not
heard. Laying down her work, she passed into the front hall. There for
an instant she paused, then opened the door.

It was Barode Barouche. Then the memory of a summer like