dn't have asked you that," she said. "One reason I came was
because--because I wanted to hear the worst. You were too considerate to
tell me--all."

He looked mutely into her eyes, and a great desire arose in him to be
able to carry her away from it all. Many times within the past year,
when the troubles and complications of his life had weighed upon him,
his thoughts had turned to, that Western country, limited only by the
bright horizons where the sun rose and set. If he could only take her
there, or into his own hills, where no man might follow them! It was a
primeval longing, and, being a woman and the object of it, she saw
its essential meaning in his face. For a brief moment they stood as
completely alone as on the crest of Sawanec.

"Good night," she said, in a low voice.

He did not trust himself to speak at once, but went down the steps with
her to the curb, where Hastings Weare was waiting in the runabout.

"I was just telling Miss Flint," said that young gentleman, "that you
would have been my candidate."

Austen's face relaxed.

"Thank you, Mr. Weare," he said simply; and to Victoria, "Good night."

At the corner, when she turned, she saw him still standing on the edge
of the sidewalk, his tall figure thrown into bold relief by the light
which flooded from the entrance. The account of the Ripton meeting,
substantially as it appeared in the State Tribune, was by a singular
coincidence copied at once into sixty-odd weekly newspapers, and
must have caused endless merriment throughout the State. Congressman
Fairplay's prophecy of "negligible" was an exaggeration, and one
gentleman who had rashly predicted that Mr. Crewe would get twenty
delegates out of a thousand hid himself for shame. On the whole,
the "monumental farce" forecast seemed best to fit the situation. A
conference was held at Leith between the candidate, Mr. Tooting, and
the Honourable Timothy Watling of Newcastle, who was preparing the
nominating speech, although the convention was more than two months
distant. Mr. Watling was skilled in rounded periods of oratory and in
other things political; and both he and Mr. Tooting reiterated
their opinion that there was no particle of doubt about Mr. Crewe's
nomination.

"But we'll have to fight fire with fire," Mr. Tooting declared. It was
probably an accident that he happened to kick, at this instant, Mr.
Watling under cover of the table. Mr. Watling was an old and valued
friend.

"Gentlemen,