on."

Gorse nodded. I was aware, all the time Dickinson was speaking, of
being surrounded by the strange, disquieting gaze of the counsel for the
Railroad....

I went back to my office to spend an uneasy morning. My sorrow for
Mr. Watling was genuine, but nevertheless I found myself compelled to
consider an honour no man lightly refuses. Had it presented itself at
any other time, had it been due to a happier situation than that brought
about by the illness of a man whom I loved and admired, I should have
thought the prospect dazzling indeed, part and parcel of my amazing
luck. But now--now I was in an emotional state that distorted the
factors of life, all those things I hitherto had valued; even such a
prize as this I weighed in terms of one supreme desire: how would the
acceptance of the senatorship affect the accomplishment of this desire?
That was the question. I began making rapid calculations: the actual
election would take place in the legislature a year from the following
January; provided I were able to overcome Nancy's resistance--which I
was determined to do--nothing in the way of divorce proceedings could be
thought of for more than a year; and I feared delay. On the other hand,
if we waited until after I had been duly elected to get my divorce and
marry Nancy my chances of reelection would be small. What did I care for
the senatorship anyway--if I had her? and I wanted her now, as soon as I
could get her. She--a life with her represented new values, new values
I did not define, that made all I had striven for in the past of little
worth. This was a bauble compared with the companionship of the woman
I loved, the woman intended for me, who would give me peace of mind and
soul and develop those truer aspirations that had long been thwarted and
starved for lack of her. Gradually, as she regained the ascendency over
my mind she ordinarily held--and from which she had been temporarily
displaced by the arrival of Mr. Watling's letter and the talk in the
bank--I became impatient and irritated by the intrusion. But what answer
should I give to Dickinson and Gorse? what excuse for declining such an
offer? I decided, as may be imagined, to wait, to temporize.

The irony of circumstances--of what might have been--prevented now my
laying this trophy at Nancy's feet, for I knew I had only to mention the
matter to be certain of losing her.

XXIII.

I had bought a small automobile, which I ran myself, and it wa