hite pine chair in place of
the red leathern one, he would have used it without an admission of
discomfort. In the midnight hours he liked the empty house about
him--the silence and the safeguard of his loneliness. The deserted
reception-rooms at the end of the hall pleased him by their stillness
and the cold of their fireless grates. Even the stiff, unyielding
furniture, in its fancy dress of satin brocade, soothed him by its
remoteness when he passed it wrapped in thought.

He flung himself into the easy chair, raised the light by which he read,
and unfolded a newspaper lying upon his desk. As he did so an article
which concerned himself caught his eye, and he read it with curious
intentness.

"THE MAN WITH THE CONSCIENCE.

REFUSES TO RECOMMEND THE PROPOSED
RESTRICTION OF THE SUFFRAGE.

ATTACHES HIS SIGNATURE TO SEVERAL BILLS.--TO
AMEND AND RE-ENACT THE CHARTER OF THE
TOWN OF CULPEPER--TO ESTABLISH A
FERRY ACROSS THE PIANKITANK."

He reread it abstractedly, pondering not the future of Culpeper or of
the Piankitank River, but the title by which he was beginning to be
known:

"The Man with the Conscience!" He had been in office less than a month,
and three times within the last week he had been called "The Man with
the Conscience." Once a member of the Senate had declared on the floor
that the "two strongest factors in present State politics are found to
be in the will of the people and the conscience of the governor." The
morning papers had reported it, and when, several days later, he had
vetoed a bill providing to place certain powers in the hands of a
corporation that was backed by large capital, he had been hailed again
as "The Man with the Conscience!" Now he wondered as he read what the
verdict would be to-morrow, when his refusal to sign a document which
lay at that moment upon his desk must become widely known. He had
refused, not because the bill granted too great rights to a corporation,
but because it needlessly restricted the growth of a railroad. Would his
refusal in this instance be dubbed "conscience" or "inconsistency"?

At the moment he was the people's man--this he knew. His name was
cheered by the general voice. As he passed along the street bootblacks
hurrahed! him. He had determined that the governorship should cease to
represent a figurehead, and for right or wrong, he was the man of the
hour.

He laid the paper aside, and lifting a pipe from his desk, s