McLEOD returned home to find his plans of political success in perfect order. The programme went through without a hitch. In spite of the most desperate efforts of the Democrats, he carried the state by a large majority and made, for the Republican party and its strange allies, the first breach in the solid phalanx of Democratic supremacy since Le-gree left his legacy of corruption and terror.

The Legislature elected two Senators. To the amazement of the world, the day before the caucus of the Republicans met, McLeod withdrew. He had no opposition so far as anybody knew, but a curious thing had happened. The Rev. John Durham discovered the fact that McLeod kept a still and had established his mother as an illicit distiller years before. One of his deputies who had become an inebriate, confessed this to the doctor who had informed the Preacher.

The Preacher put this important piece of information into the hands of a daring young Republican who had always been one from principle. He went to Raleigh and interviewed McLeod. At first McLeod denied, and blustered, and swore. When he produced the proofs, he gave up, and asked sullenly, “What do you want?”

“Get out of the race.”

“All right. Is that all? You’re on top.”

“No, give me the nomination.”

“Never!” he yelled with an oath.

“Then I ’ll expose you in to-morrow morning’s paper, and that’s the end of you.”

McLeod hesitated a moment, and then said, “I ’ll agree. You’ve got me. But I ’ll make one little condition. You must give me the name of your informant.”

“The Rev. John Durham.”

“I thought as much.”

To the amazement of everyone McLeod waived the crown aside and placed it on the head of one of his lieutenants. He returned to Hambright from this dramatic event with an unruffled front. To his cronies he said, “Bah! I was joking. Never had any idea of taking the office for myself. I’m playing for larger stakes. I make these puppets, and pull the strings.”

He devoted himself assiduously in the leisure which followed to Mrs. Durham. He never intimated to Durham that he knew anything about the part he had taken in his withdrawal from the Senatorship. Nor had the Preacher told his wife of his discovery. They had quarrelled several times about McLeod. His wife seemed determined to remain loyal to the boy she had taught.

McLeod in his talk with her intimated that he had withdrawn from a desire vaguely forming in his mind to get out of the filth of politics altogether, sooner or later, influenced by her voice alone.

With subtle skill he played upon her vanity and jealousy, and at last felt that he had entangled her so far he could dare a declaration of his feelings. There was one element only in her mental make-up he feared. She held tenaciously the old-fashioned romantic ideals of love. To her it seemed a divine mystery linking the souls that felt it to the infinite. If he could only destroy this divine mystery idea, he felt sure that her sense of isolation, and her proud rebellion against the disappointments of life would make her an easy prey to his blandishments.

He searched his library over for a book that could scientifically demonstrate the purely physical basis of love. He knew that somewhere in his studies at a medical college in New York he had read it.

At last he discovered it among a lot of old magazines. It was a brief study by a great physician of Paris, entitled “The Natural History of Love.” He gave it to her, and asked her to read it and give him her candid opinion of its philosophy.

He waited a week and on a Saturday when the Preacher was absent at one of his county mission stations he called at the hotel for a long afternoon’s talk. He determined to press his suit.

“Do you know, Mrs. Durham, what gives a preacher his boasted power of the spirit over his audiences?” he inquired with a curious laugh in the midst of which he changed his tone of voice.

“No, you are an expert on the diseases of preachers, what is it?”

“Very simple. Religion is founded on love, there never was a magnetic preacher who was not a resistless magnet for scores of magnetic women. If you don’t believe it, watch how resistless is the impulse of all these good-looking women to shake hands with their preacher, and how fondly they look at him across the pews if the crowd is too dense to reach his hand.”

A frown passed over her face, and she winced at the thrust, yet her answer was a surprising question to him.

“Do you really believe in anything, Allan?”

“You ask that?” he said leaning closer. “You whose great dark eyes look through a man’s very soul?”

“I begin to think I have never seen yours. I doubt if you have a soul.”

“Well, what’s the use of a soul? I can’t satisfy the wants of my body.”

“Answer my question. Do you believe in anything?”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice sinking to a tense whisper, “I believe in Woman,—in love.”

“In Woman?”

“Yes, Woman.”

“You mean women,” she sneered.

He started at her answer, looked intently at her, and said deliberately, “I mean you, the One Woman, the only woman in the world to me.”

“I do not believe one word you have uttered, yet, I confess with shame, you have always fascinated me.”

“Why with shame? You have but one life to live. The years pass. Even beauty so rare as yours fades at last. The end is the grave and worms. Why dash from your beautiful lips the cup of life when it is full to the brim?”

“How skillfully you echo the dark thoughts that flit on devil wings through the soul, when we feel the bitterness of life’s failure, its contradictions and mysteries!” she exclaimed, closing her eyes for a moment and leaning back in her chair.

“You’ve often talked to me about the necessity of some sort of slavery for the Negro if he remain in America. I begin to believe that slavery is a necessity for all women.”

“I fail to see it, sir.”

“All women are born slaves and choose to remain so through life. It is curious to see you, a proud imperious woman, born of a race of unconquerable men, staggering to-day u............