tly that she had to stay on in
Boston, when she might look after him, make it easier for him if only
she could be with him. Twice he came to Boston on flying visits, and the
last time she almost decided to throw up her engagement and go back with
him.

He assured her that her absence was providential, that he could never
see her, even if she were in the same hotel, that it was less
tantalizing to have her away, than near and far. He never failed to say
good-night by long distance. Sometimes the tired little boy note crept
into it to disturb her slumbers.

The week of the election arrived with excitement high. No gubernatorial
campaign in years had been fought with such tenacity and fierceness. The
entire state was lined up in rabid factions. Trent occasionally sent
Barbara a package of newspapers from the smaller towns in the state and
she read in one of Paul as "the embodiment of youth and courage, the two
qualities most needed in the new governor. Full of enthusiasm for
reforms that mean greater efficiency in our state government, yet
tempered by a calm judgment and the experience which came to him in his
brilliant career in the law." Next she read: "Paul Trent is the tool
and mouthpiece of rampant reform. Once in the governor's chair, he will
prove a dangerous factor to be dealt with by the people when it is too
late."

They accused him of every crime in the decalogue, this side of
murder--and every virtue. They mentioned his mysterious marriage with a
well-known actress as proof of his loose moral standards--as proof of
his fine democratic ideas! The whole thing, viewed as a spectacle, made
one of the absurd exhibits of our political system.

When Barbara was not raging, perforce, she laughed.

For the first three days of the week before election the New York call
came once at one, twice later than that. Three or four meetings a night
listened to Trent, and during the day he addressed crowds in the nearby
towns. The day before election, at noon, Barbara entered her manager's
office with an air of bravado.

"Oh, good-morning. This is an honour," he smiled.

"Wait a minute before you waste that smile! An understudy has got to go
on for me to-night and to-morrow night."

"What? Are you sick?"

"No. I'm going to New York on an afternoon train. I'll come back on the
midnight train to-morrow."

"You will and you won't. That's a pretty high tone for you to take with
me. What about the receipts--what about me--