preaching to the freedmen
he had already become a marked man. No house could hold his audiences.

As he stepped briskly into the dining-room and passed the brown woman, a
close observer might have seen him suddenly press her hand and caught her
sly answering smile, but the old man waiting at the head of the table saw
nothing.

The woman took her seat opposite Stoneman and presided over this curious
group with the easy assurance of conscious power. Whatever her real
position, she knew how to play the role she had chosen to assume.

No more curious or sinister figure ever cast a shadow across the history
of a great nation than did this mulatto woman in the most corrupt hour of
American life. The grim old man who looked into her sleek tawny face and
followed her catlike eyes was steadily gripping the Nation by the throat.
Did he aim to make this woman the arbiter of its social life, and her
ethics the limit of its moral laws?

Even the white satellite who sat opposite Lynch flushed for a moment as
the thought flashed through his brain.

The old cynic, who alone knew his real purpose, was in his most genial
mood to-night, and the grim lines of his powerful face relaxed into
something like a smile as they ate and chatted and told good stories.

Lynch watched him with keen interest. He knew his history and character,
and had built on his genius a brilliant scheme of life.

This man who meant to become the dictator of the Republic had come from
the humblest early conditions. His father was a worthless character, from
whom he had learned the trade of a shoemaker, but his mother, a woman of
vigorous intellect and indomitable will, had succeeded in giving her lame
boy a college education. He had early sworn to be a man of wealth, and to
this purpose he had throttled the dreams and ideals of a wayward
imagination.

His hope of great wealth had not been realized. His iron mills in
Pennsylvania had been destroyed by Lee's army. He had developed the habit
of gambling, which brought its train of extravagant habits, tastes, and
inevitable debts. In his vigorous manhood, in spite of his lameness, he
had kept a pack of hounds and a stable of fine horses. He had used his
skill in shoemaking to construct a set of stirrups to fit his lame feet,
and had become an expert hunter to hounds.

One thing he never neglected--to be in his seat in the House of
Representatives and wear its royal crown of leadership, sick or well, day
or nig