ompromise, and equally
without the slightest concession to the natural human passion for
vindication, the momentous step had been taken. Whatever might come of
it, there would be no daggerings from an outraged conscience, no remorse
for an unworthy passion impulsively yielded to. Also, with the rolling
of the terrible burden to other and entirely competent shoulders there
came a sense of freedom that was almost jubilant; and under the
promptings of this new light-heartedness he was able to make a
reasonably cheerful fourth at the _cafe_ dinner-table a little later.

Oddly enough, as he thought, Patricia was also cheerful, though she
vanished with Mrs. Honoria to the private suite shortly after the
adjournment to the mezzanine lounge. Past this, after the father and son
had smoked their cigars in man-like silence for a time, Mrs. Honoria,
coated and hatted as if to go out, came back to sit near the
balustrade, looking down upon the kindling lobby activities. Shortly
after her coming the senator rose to go. Instantly his wife sprang up to
walk with him to the head of the great stair.

"The time has come?" she asked quickly.

"I reckon it has, little woman."

"I wish I might be there to see," she said softly. And then, whipping a
packet of papers from under her street-coat: "Take these. When you see
what they are, you'll know why I haven't given them to you before this.
As long as you didn't know anything about it, you could tell Evan the
simple truth--that you didn't have them."

The Honorable David pocketed the papers without looking at them.

"I suspected you--or, rather, young Collins--quite a little spell ago,"
he said with imperturbable good nature. "I couldn't have done it myself;
I reckon no right-minded man could have done it, but--"

"--But women have no conscience," she finished for him. "_I_ hadn't in
this instance. There was too much at stake with a firebrand like Evan to
deal with. Don't be too good-natured, David--to-night, I mean. You know
that is your failing when you have a man down. But to-night you must
make the man pay the price. That's all, I think. I'm going back to Evan
now to see if I can't make him talk to me. That is the one thing I have
seldom been able to do thus far."

If Blount was a little surprised when the small plotter came back to
take the chair recently vacated by his father, he was generous enough
not to show it. The huge sense of relief was still with him, and its
mellowing i