thing ever printed about him could be compared with those
articles. Had remorse suddenly overtaken him in his old age? Such were
the questions people we're asking all over the state--people, at least,
who were interested in politics, or in those operations which went
by the name of politics: yes, and many private citizens--who had
participated in politics only to the extent of voting for such
candidates as Jethro in his wisdom had seen fit to give them, read the
articles and began to say that boss domination was at an end. A new era
was at hand, which they fondly (and very properly) believed was to be
a golden era. It was, indeed, to be a golden era--until things got
working; and then the gold would cease. The Newcastle Guardian, with
unconscious irony, proclaimed the golden era; and declared that its
columns, even in other days and under other ownership, had upheld the
wisdom of Jethro Bass. And he was still a wise man, said the Guardian,
for he had had sense enough to give up the fight.

Had he given up the fight? Cynthia fervently hoped and prayed that he
had, but she hoped and prayed in silence. Well she knew, if the event in
the tannery shed had not made him abandon his affairs, no appeal could
do so. Her happiest days in this period were the Saturdays and Sundays
spent with him in Coniston, and as the weeks went by she began to
believe that the change, miraculous as it seemed, had indeed taken
place. He had given up his power. It was a pleasure that made the weeks
bearable for her. What did it matter--whether he had made the sacrifice
for the sake of his love for her? He had made it.

On these Saturdays and Sundays they went on long drives together over
the hills, while she talked to him of her life in Brampton or the books
she was reading, and of those she had chosen for him to read. Sometimes
they did not turn homeward until the delicate tracery of the branches
on the snow warned them of the rising moon. Jethro was often silent for
hours at a time, but it seemed to Cynthia that it was the silence of
peace--of a peace he had never known before. There came no newspapers
to the tannery house now: during the mid-week he read the books of which
she had spoken William Wetherell's books; or sat in thought, counting,
perhaps; the days until she should come again. And the boy of those
days for him was more pathetic than much that is known to the world as
sorrow.

And what did Coniston think? Coniston, indeed, knew not