friend joining them chaffed Myton and King about their candidacies, and King found no opportunity to answer Myton's question. But when Myton entered Barton's office he found King there. While the three men were in the threshold of their conference, the spidery little eyes of Barton crawled over Myton with revolting familiarity. This irritated Myton. Perhaps Barton knew that he could force Myton to come to a point with his business before Myton was ready, for Myton plunged into the object of the conference after wasting but a few minutes.

"I am in this senatorial race to stay; I can get forty-seven votes to-night on the first ballot. Colonel King is at the end of his rope. He is not as strong as he was two days ago. He can't be nominated. I can be. I need six votes. You gentlemen have got them. Can I have them ? "

Myton rose as he spoke, put his foot in his chair, and leaned with one hand on the crooked knee. There was no reply to his request. He continued: "I will let Colonel King name a United States Marshal, a collector of the port, in his town, and a United States District Attorney.

You can either take that offer, or I'll go to Metcalf and make the deal with him. You can't make a deal with him, because he doesn't trust you. You've tried. He has refused to cast his votes for me with the rest of the anti's, because I haven't had a down talk with him. I prefer to do business with you, because I know you can deliver the goods. Maybe he can, maybe he can't. But I want a yes or no answer from you before I leave."

The furrows in Myton's face bit into his cheek. His nerves worked like steel wires. His voice was steady and hard. King caught Barton's eyes and they dropped. He found no reassurance in them. King began to drum on his chairarm. An instant later his fear of Barton was justified, for Barton's reply was :

not see Barton pantomime King to call Myton back.

"Hold on, Henry, don't be so fast. We're your friends all right. Let's talk this thing over."

Barton's eyes and Myton's met; the two men gazed at each other for a moment, and King saw them reach an understanding.

66

"Your offer to Sam is generous enough, I guess," said Barton. But you see, Mr. Myton, you don't know the situation;" Barton appeared to be looking over his desk for something, in a short pause that followed. He was really only marshalling his diplomacy to say: "You see he's spent quite a little money -- all legitimately, you understand, but he isn't a rich man and can't afford to lose it."

Myton shuddered. The whimsical superstition that someone was walking over his grave caught his fancy. But his sane mind saw that the question was one of dollars and cents-a clear case of bargain. But Julia Fairbanks's eyes danced

before him. Myton stilted on Barton's pretence and addressed King.

"Colonel, if that's the way the land lays I can't help you, I have no money.' Barton waited for King to speak. King answered, dryly :

"What's the matter with your note?"

"It isn't worth a damn," returned Myton, relighting his cigar the second time in five minutes.

He was seated at a table. King was pacing the floor. Barton sat facing My

ton.

King asked: " Mr. Barton, will you discount Myton's note for $20,000?" Myton caught his breath.

"Well, you better find out if he'll sign it first," replied Barton.

There was something almost humorous in the glitter of Barton's eyes as he spoke. "What do you say, Henry?" This came from King.

Something dying in Myton's soul tried to rise, but it passed, and Myton answered :

ton.

treachery. He The three men

He did not fear had debated that point. rose and King spoke : "It may be just as well if we don't hold any further conferences till after this nomination is made. It might arouse the suspicions of some of them Band of Hope fellows. The good St. Moulton of Arapahoe County might find some irregularities in the minutes of this meeting; eh, Henry?" Myton did not heed the thrust. He was enthralled by the vision of power. Desire to win puts a callous on a man that numbs him like the chill of death.

When Henry Myton returned to his hotel from Barton's office, he found a note from Julia Fairbanks waiting for him. It was a note that hailed him as Thane of Cawdor, who should be king thereafter. Julia Fairbanks had seen Myton's name in the head-lines in the morning papers, and under the head-lines she had read that he was a senatorial possibility. Her missive contained just the number of endearing words to recall to Myton for a vivid moment his sweetheart's personality. He put the note in his pocket and touched it fondly during the day as he went his way. All his energy was bent to his purpose. He simulated indifference, yet he racked his ingenuity to make excuses for being with the anti-King leaders during the entire afternoon. His anxiety did not abate until he walked with them into the Senate Chamber where the caucus was about to be held. But when the meeting had been called to order, Henry Myton sat alone in the back part of the hall.

The madness of the chase was gone. The tense cord of his passion for victory relaxed. His energy was spent, and a chill of horror began to creep over Myton as he realized, in a sober reaction from his folly, what he had done. The horror bound him about the body like cold iron. He shuddered as he saw himself more clearly. Self-loathing rose in him and filled the feverish ducts of remorse. insanity of sheer terror made Myton hope that Barton would fail to fulfil their bargain.

The

The roll-call started. In the "A's and B" and "C's" the King men voted for King, the Metcalf men for Metcalf. The anti-King men voted for Myton. Each time his name was called down through

the "E's" and "F's " and " D's,” Myton felt that he must stop the balloting. When Haff voted for Myton there was a clapping of hands on the anti-King side of the house. Myton was writhing in his soul, with the grip of remorse that is fresh.

ter.

it.

He clutched Julia Fairbanks's letHe tried to find sustaining grace in For a minute it buoyed him. Then Moulton voted for Myton. A faint cheer arose. A hundred faces looked toward him. Myton sank in his chair. The crowd thought that modesty drew him down; but he shrank from the eyes of his friends. In the "S's" the last of the anti-King votes was polled, and Myton had forty-seven votes. He lacked six. Taylor, a King supporter, voted for Myton. A cheer of surprise burst forth. Myton started to rise and stop the roll-call. While it progressed and until that moment he had hoped that something would happen to prevent the consummation of the fraud he had planned. He hoped as a doomed man hopes. Turner voted for Myton. He was dazed with the inevitableness of his fate. He tried to rise; something from his sweetheart fettered him. Perhaps it came from her note in his clinched hand. So he only leaned forward. Thorn voted for Myton. The cheer that went up had hats in it. Vernon's vote for Myton created pandemonium. Yates and Weston voted by mounting chairs and yelling with the mob.

When it was all over, when the speeches were said, when the crowd had dispersed, Myton's heart was numb. He felt a blind desire to be with Julia Fairbanks. It was not to share the triumph with her that he longed for her, not to be revived by the warmth of her smile, not even to reproach her; the indefinable yearning for something strong outside himself—the yearning that older men and women feel when they call on God-brought Myton to Julia Fairbanks, weary, sick, and sore.

The telephone had told her of his nomination. Myton, haggard and worn, entered the room where the figure of the winged victory was. He stood for a moment, waiting, and faced the white figure, leaning his head upon its pedestal. His breast was heavy with sobs that would not rise. He was heedless of the premonitory sounds that told of Julia Fairbanks's approach.

She came to Myton with her head poised for the crown of her coming glory. Her eyes beamed, her cheeks glowed; her lips were parted and her countenance shone with the vanity of triumph that was palpitating her nerves. Her crinkly black hair was knotted high upon her head. A little pulse throbbing in her bare white throat was a visible sign of her spiritual exultation. The white wool house dress that she wore was girdled under her arms with white ribbon; from it the lines of drapery that fell to the hem of the garment suggested rather than traced her figure. She might have stepped from a picture.

On the threshold she greeted him with "Senator," and put the essence of her pride in a smile.

The smile and her greeting stung him. Another instant she was in his arms. He did not speak; but looked deeply into his sweetheart's eyes, and for all his remorse Henry Myton thrilled with the kiss she gave him; but a moment later he shuddered away from her and cried :

No, no, Julia, go away from me-I'm unclean, Julia, don't touch me." She saw the marks of sadness upon him and that the spark in his eyes was dead. The lines in her forehead knit, but the flame in her cheeks did not quench.

"Why, Henry-dearest-" she exclaimed, "what is it?"

He took a chair and she came near him. He held his head in his hands and fixed his eyes on the floor.

"Julia," he began, "I have done a vile thing. I have sold my honor for money and have bought my way into the United States Senate." She punctuated his words with an exclamation. "I have deceived my best friends. I have traded upon their faith in me and have made mock of the highest sentiments a man may hold. Oh, Julia, Julia, I am in a hell, I, who was sanctified by your love, I, who was glorified even as the angels are. I am black and damned in perfidy."

The girl did not understand his mood. She did not wish to realize it. She felt that it placed no serious obstacle in the way of her happiness. She moved toward him and replied:

"Oh, no, Henry, you are tired to-night, to-morrow you will see things differently. Tell me about it, dearest-I am not

ashamed of anything you could do. How have you sold yourself?"

When he finished his story, omitting none of the details, she replied:

"Dearest, that isn't so bad. You needn't sell yourself to Barton. Don't the senators make investments and make money honestly? I know you can. Oh, my dear boy, I have faith in you. I know you can."

Myton leaned back in the chair and shook his head.

"Julia, there's no use." The emotion had left his voice and he spoke in a hopeless tone. "Once in awhile there is a senator who goes in for investments, and the decent men in the Senate have an ugly name for him. Such a man is soon known. He is as a scarlet woman. Honest men shun him and soon they will shun me. They will say: There's Myton, he's gone over the hill. There's Henry Myton who used to live decently-he's on the make now. He will take money-or investments. He will be numbered with the doubtfuls.' They will know me for what I am, not for what I have been. man they knew, the man you loved yesterday, is dead."

The

There was a silence between the two lovers. The girl slipped from her chair and knelt beside Myton's chair with her arms about his shoulders. She broke the silence:

"Henry, oh, Henry, maybe I can help you-you called me your guiding star last night. Have I set thus soon? Dearest, let us be brave and forget all this-something will come to make it all right."

She crept closer to his side. A long gust of wind sighed mournfully by. The girl looked up with a smile and said :

"Why, dearest-it's all the samethere's our wind, our very same wind that carries our old friends the ghosts singing their love-songs for you."

Myton let her slip from his arms and cried, in despair :

"Oh, my God, my God, and I shall ride with them-the fallen ones, the restless ones, who spend eternity sobbing for their yesterdays."

The wind crooned its dreary monody again. A sob shook Myton and he cried : "My dead self of yesterday is out there, Julia, hunting me, haunting me. Hear it? Hear it?"