ptain Kidd or a Caesar Borgia with a
conscience would never have been heard of. Mr. Flint did not call it
a conscience--he had a harder name for it. He had to send Hilary, thus
vitiated, into the Convention to conduct the most important battle since
the founding of the Empire, and Austen Vane was responsible.

Mr. Flint had to control himself. In spite of his feelings, he saw that
he must do so. And yet he could not resist saying: "I get a good many
rumours here. They tell me that there may be another candidate in the
field--a dark horse."

"Who?" asked Hilary.

"There was a meeting in the room of a man named Redbrook during the
Legislature to push this candidate," said Mr. Flint, eyeing his counsel
significantly, "and now young Gaylord has been going quietly around the
State in his interest."

Suddenly the listless figure of Hilary Vane straightened, and the old
look which had commanded the respect and obedience of men returned to
his eye.

"You mean my son?" he demanded.

"Yes," said Mr. Flint; "they tell me that when the time comes, your son
will be a candidate on a platform opposed to our interests."

"Then," said Hilary, "they tell you a damned lie."

Hilary Vane had not sworn for a quarter of a century, and yet it is to
be doubted if he ever spoke more nobly. He put his hands on the arms of
his chair and lifted himself to his feet, where he stood for a moment,
a tell figure to be remembered. Mr. Flint remembered it for many years.
Hilary Vane's long coat was open, and seemed in itself to express this
strange and new-found vigour in its flowing lines; his head was thrown
back, and a look on his face which Mr. Flint had never seen there. He
drew from an inner pocket a long envelope, and his hand trembled, though
with seeming eagerness, as he held it out to Mr. Flint.

"Here!" he said.

"What's this?" asked Mr. Flint. He evinced no desire to take it, but
Hilary pressed it on him.

"My resignation as counsel for your road."

The president of the Northeastern, bewildered by this sudden
transformation, stared at the envelope.

"What? Now--to-day?" he said.

"No," answered Hilary; "read it. You'll see it takes effect the day
after the State convention. I'm not much use any more you've done your
best to bring that home to me, and you'll need a new man to do--the kind
of work I've been doing for you for twenty-five years. But you can't get
a new man in a day, and I said I'd stay with you, and I keep my wo