d. Work is best for yourself, and the public
expects it of you. Take time to consider, and wire me in two days."

Anderson thrust it into his pocket, and was only with difficulty
persuaded to show it to Mariette.

But in the course of the evening many letters arrived--letters of
sympathy from old friends in Quebec and Manitoba, from colleagues and
officials, from navvies and railwaymen, even, on the C.P.R., from his
future constituents in Saskatchewan--drawn out by the newspaper reports
of the inquest and of Anderson's evidence. For once the world rallied to
a good man in distress! and Anderson was strangely touched and
overwhelmed by it.

He passed an almost sleepless night, and in the morning as he met
Elizabeth on her balcony he said to her, half reproachfully, pointing to
Mariette below--

"It was you sent for him."

Elizabeth smiled.

"A woman knows her limitations! It is harder to refuse two than one."

For twenty-four hours the issue remained uncertain. Letters continued to
pour in; Mariette applied the plain-spoken, half-scornful arguments
natural to a man holding a purely spiritual standard of life; and
Elizabeth pleaded more by look and manner than by words.

Anderson held out as long as he could. He was assaulted by that dark
midway hour of manhood, that distrust of life and his own powers, which
disables so many of the world's best men in these heightened, hurrying
days. But in the end his two friends saved him--as by fire.

Mariette himself dictated the telegram to the Prime Minister in which
Anderson withdrew his resignation; and then, while Anderson, with a
fallen countenance, carried it to the post, the French Canadian and
Elizabeth looked at each other--in a common exhaustion and relief.

"I feel a wreck," said Elizabeth. "Monsieur, you are an excellent
ally." And she held out her hand to her colleague. Mariette took it, and
bowed over it with the air of a _grand seigneur_ of 1680.

"The next step must be yours, madam--if you really take an interest in
our friend."

Elizabeth rather nervously inquired what it might be.

"Find him a wife!--a good wife. He was not made to live alone."

His penetrating eyes in his ugly well-bred face searched the features of
his companion. Elizabeth bore it smiling, without flinching.

A fortnight passed--and Elizabeth and Philip were on their way home
through the heat of July. Once more the railway which had become their
kind familiar friend sped them th