Magistrate of the Republic!"

"And why, pray?" sneered the Commoner.

"In the name of common decency, law, and order. The President is a man of
inherent power, even if he did learn to read after his marriage. Like many
other Americans, he is a self-made man----"

"Glad to hear it," snapped Stoneman. "It relieves Almighty God of a
fearful responsibility."

They left him in disgust and dismay.

CHAPTER X

TOSSED BY THE STORM

As the storm of passion raised by the clash between her father and the
President rose steadily to the sweep of a cyclone, Elsie felt her own life
but a leaf driven before its fury.

Her only comfort she found in Phil, whose letters to her were full of love
for Margaret. He asked Elsie a thousand foolish questions about what she
thought of his chances.

To her own confessions he was all sympathy.

"Of father's wild scheme of vengeance against the South," he wrote, "I am
heartsick. I hate it on principle, to say nothing of a girl I know. I am
with General Grant for peace and reconciliation. What does your lover
think of it all? I can feel your anguish. The bill to rob the Southern
people of their land, which I hear is pending, would send your sweetheart
and mine, our enemies, into beggared exile. What will happen in the South?
Riot and bloodshed, of course--perhaps a guerilla war of such fierce and
terrible cruelty humanity sickens at the thought. I fear the Rebellion
unhinged our father's reason on some things. He was too old to go to the
front; the cannon's breath would have cleared the air and sweetened his
temper. But its healing was denied. I believe the tawny leopardess who
keeps his house influences him in this cruel madness. I could wring her
neck with exquisite pleasure. Why he allows her to stay and cloud his life
with her she-devil temper and fog his name with vulgar gossip is beyond
me."

Seated in the park on the Capitol hill the day after her father had
introduced his Confiscation Bill in the House, pending the impeachment of
the President, she again attempted to draw Ben out as to his feelings on
politics.

She waited in sickening fear and bristling pride for the first burst of
his anger which would mean their separation.

"How do I feel?" he asked. "Don't feel at all. The surrender of General
Lee was an event so stunning, my mind has not yet staggered past it.
Nothing much can happen after that, so it don't matter."

"Negro suffrage don't matter?"

"No. We c