office as president of my road and became
a clerk in a store. I don't attempt to excuse myself, Carry, but my sin
has been in holding on to my post. As long as I remain president I have
to cope with things as I find them."

Mr. Merrill spoke thickly, for the sight of his wife's tears wrung his
heart.

"Stephen," she said, "when we were first married and you were a district
superintendent, you used to tell me everything."

Stephen Merrill was a man, and a good man, as men go. How was he to tell
her the degrees by which he had been led into his present situation?
How was he to explain that these degrees had been so gradual that his
conscience had had but a passing wrench here and there? Politics being
what they were, progress and protection had to be obtained in accordance
with them, and there was a duty to the holders of bonds and stocks.

His wife had a question on her lips, a question for which she had to
summon all her courage. She chose that form for it which would hurt him
least.

"Mr. Worthington is going to try to change these things?"

Mr. Merrill roused himself at the words, and his eyes flashed. He became
a different man.

"Change them!" he cried bitterly, "change them for the worse, if he can.
He will try to wrest the power from Jethro Bass. I don't defend him.
I don't defend myself. But I like Jethro Bass. I won't deny it. He's
human, and I like him, and whatever they say about him I know that he's
been a true friend to me. And I tell you as I hope for happiness here
and hereafter, that if Worthington succeeds in what he is trying to
do, if the railroads win in this fight, there will be no mercy for
the people of that state. I'm a railroad man myself, though I have no
interest in this affair. My turn may come later. Will come later, I
suppose. Isaac D. Worthington has a very little heart or soul or mercy
himself; but the corporation which he means to set up will have none at
all. It will grind the people and debase them and clog their progress a
hundred times more than Jethro Bass has done. Mark my words, Carry. I'm
running ahead of the times a little, but I can see it all as clearly as
if it existed now."

Mrs. Merrill went about her duties that morning with a heavy heart, and
more than once she paused to wipe away a tear that would have fallen
on the linen she was sorting. At eleven o'clock the doorbell rang, and
Ellen appeared at the entrance to the linen closet with a card in her
hand. Mrs. Merr