is
atrophy of the moral senses by disuse? Meanwhile, here she sat face to
face with a moral lunatic, who had not even enough sense of humour to
see the absurdity of his own request, that she should go out to the
shore of this ocean of corruption, and repeat the ancient role of King
Canute, or Dame Partington with her mop and her pail. What was to be
done with such an animal?

The bystander who looked on at this scene with a wider knowledge of
facts, might have found entertainment in another view of the subject,
that is to say, in the guilelessness ot Madeleine Lee. With all her
warnings she was yet a mere baby-in-arms in the face of the great
politician. She accepted his story as true, and she thought it as bad as
possible; but had Mr.

Ratcliffe's associates now been present to hear his version of it, they
would have looked at each other with a smile of professional pride, and
would have roundly sworn that he was, beyond a doubt, the ablest man
this country had ever produced, and next to certain of being President.
They would not, however, have told their own side of the story if they
could have helped it, but in talking it over among themselves they might
have assumed the facts to have been nearly as follows: that Ratcliffe
had dragged them into an enormous expenditure to carry his own State,
and with it his own re-election to the Senate; that they had tried to
hold him responsible, and he had tried to shirk the responsibility;
that there had been warm discussions on the subject; that he himself
had privately suggested recourse to Baker, had shaped his conduct
accordingly, and had compelled them, in order to save their own credit,
to receive the money.

Even if Mrs. Lee had heard this part of the story, though it might
have sharpened her indignation against Mr. Ratcliffe, it would not have
altered her opinions. As it was, she had heard enough, and with a great
effort to control her expression of disgust, she sank back in her chair
as Ratcliffe concluded. Finding that she did not speak, he went on:

"I do not undertake to defend this affair. It is the act of my public
life which I most regret--not the doing, but the necessity of doing. I
do not differ from you in opinion on that point. I cannot acknowledge
that there is here any real divergence between us."

"I am afraid," said Mrs. Lee, "that I cannot agree with you."

This brief remark, the very brevity of which carried a barb of sarcasm,
escaped from Madelein