nce in
her resentment even of the annoyance caused her by her husband's deceit.

"Why did you conceal all this from me?" she asked, tragically.

"I should not have done so, perhaps."

"If you had told me, this difficulty never would have arisen. Pshaw! It
is not a real difficulty. Surely you must throw Elton over. Surely you
must veto the bill."

"Throw him over," stammered Lyons. "You don't understand, Selma. I gave
my word as a business man. I am under great obligations to him." He told
briefly the details of the transaction; even the hypothecation of the
Parsons bonds. For once in his life he made a clean breast of his
bosom's perilous stuff. He was ready to bear the consequences of his
plight rather than be false to his man's standard of honor, and yet his
wife's opposition had fascinated as well as startled him. He set forth
his case--the case which meant his political checkmate, then waited.
Selma had risen and stood with folded arms gazing into distance with the
far away look by which she was wont to subdue mountains.

"Have you finished?" she asked. "What you are proposing to do is to
sacrifice your life--and my life, James Lyons, for the sake of
a--er--fetish. Horace Elton, under the pretence of friendship for us,
has taken advantage of your necessities to extract from you a promise to
support an evil scheme--a bill to defraud the plain American people of
their rights--the people whose interests you swore to protect when you
took the oath as Governor. Is a promise between man and man, as you call
it, more sacred than everlasting truth itself? More binding than the tie
of principle and political good faith? Will you refuse to veto a bill
which you know is a blow at liberty in order to keep a technical
business compact with an over-reaching capitalist, who has no sympathy
with our ideas? I am disappointed in you, James. I thought you could see
clearer than that."

Lyons sighed. "I examined the bill at the time with some care, and did
not think it inimical to the best public interest; but had I foreseen
the objections which would be raised against it, I admit that I never
would have agreed to sign it."

"Precisely. You were taken in." She meant in her heart that they had
both been taken in. "This is not a case of commercial give and take--of
purchase and sale of stocks or merchandise. The eternal verities are
concerned. You owe it to your country to break your word. The triumph of
American principles is pa