ny--she who
had given me my life and her own? I tore up Betty's letter, and I looked
at mother and said, "There's nothing in that to make me waver--or
regret." It was the only lie I ever told her. I told it well, thank God,
for she was convinced, and the look in her face repaid me a
thousandfold. It repays me once more as I write.
Carlotta and I were married at her bedside, and she lived only until the
next day but one. When the doctor told me of the long concealed mortal
disease that was the cause of her going, he ended with: "And, Mr.
Sayler, it passes belief that she managed to keep alive for five years.
I can't understand it." But _I_ understood. She simply refused to go
until she felt that her mission was accomplished.
"We must never forget her," said Carlotta, trying to console me by
grieving with me.
I did not answer,--how could I explain? Never forget her! On the
contrary, I knew that I must forget, and that I must work and grow and
so heal the wound and cover its scar. I lost not a day in beginning.
To those few succeeding months I owe the power I have had all these
years to concentrate my mind upon whatever I will to think about; for in
those months I fought the fight I dared not lose--fought it and won. Let
those who have never loved talk of remembering the dead.
* * * * *
I turned away from her grave with the resolve that my first act of power
would be to stamp out Dominick. But for him she would not have gone for
many a year. It was his persecutions that involved us in the miseries
which wasted her and made her fall a victim to the mortal disease. It
was his malignity that poisoned her last years, which, but for him,
would have been happy.
As my plans for ousting Dunkirk took shape, I saw clearly that, if he
were to be overthrown at once, I must use part of the existing control
of the machine of the party,--it would take several years, at least
three, to build up an entirely new control. To work quickly, I must use
Croffut, Dunkirk's colleague in the Senate. And Croffut was the creature
of Dominick.
Early in September Woodruff came to me, at Fredonia, his manner
jubilant. "I can get Dominick," he exclaimed. "He is furious against
Dunkirk because he's just discovered that Dunkirk cheated him out of a
hundred thousand dollars on that perpetual street railway franchise,
last winter."
"But we don't want Dominick," said I.
My face must have reflected my mind,
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