ly growing more sensational, and was completely engrossing the
town. Blake, in his speeches, stood for a continuance of the rule that
had made Westville so prosperous, and dwelt especially upon an
improvement in the service of the water-works, though as to the nature
of the improvements he confined himself to language that was somewhat
vague. Katherine heard him often. He was always eloquent, clever,
forceful, with a manly grace of presence upon the platform--just what
she, and just what the town, expected him to be.

But the surprise of the campaign, to Katherine and to Westville, was
Arnold Bruce. Katherine had known Bruce to be a man of energy; now, in
her mind, a forceful if not altogether elegant phrase of Carlyle
attached itself to him--"A steam-engine in pants." He was never
clever, never polished, he never charmed with the physical grace of
his opponent, but he spoke with a power, an earnestness, and an energy
that were tremendous. By the main strength of his ideas and his
personality he seemed to bear down the prejudice against the principle
for which he stood. He seemed to stand out in the mid-current of
hostile opinion and by main strength hurl it back into its former
course. The man's efforts were nothing less than herculean. He was a
bigger man, a more powerful man, than Westville had ever dreamed; and
his spirited battle against such apparently hopeless odds had a
compelling fascination. Despite her defiantly critical attitude,
Katherine was profoundly impressed; and she heard it whispered about
that, notwithstanding Blake's great popularity, his party's certainty
of success was becoming very much disturbed.

Both Katherine and Bruce were fond of horseback riding--Doctor West's
single luxury, his saddle horse, was ever at Katherine's disposal--and
at the end of one afternoon they met by chance out along the winding
River Road, with its border of bowing willows and mottled sycamores,
between whose browned foliage could be glimpsed long reaches of the
broad and polished river, steel-gray in the shadows, a flaming copper
where the low sun poured over it its parting fire. Little by little
Bruce began to talk of his ideals. Presently he was speaking with a
simplicity and openness that he had not yet used with Katherine. She
perceived, more clearly than before, that whereas he was dogmatic in
his ideas and brutally direct in their expression, he was a hot-souled
idealist, overflowing with a passionate, even des