The mention of Rankin's name, however, had the final effect of forcing them to seek some positive means of dealing with the situation, and after the preliminary waste of time common to most conferences, they began at last to plan for the coming primaries. They were at it a long while, and when in the chill, ghastly hours of the early morning they separated, Garwood voiced what was doubtless in the hearts of all of them, when he said to Pusey: "Remember, we have Jim Rankin to fight, Pusey." Pusey switched his little eyes toward Garwood, but Garwood did not see them. He was thinking of other days. IX Garwood awoke after a few hours of restless sleep, snatched a hurried breakfast, seized his hat and was going away without a word, when Emily followed him through the hall and to the door, and with nervousness and suspense showing in her concentrated brows she looked up at him and said: "I'll be glad when this day's over." "So'll I," he rejoined, and then, though he had stepped on the veranda, he turned again. A sudden tenderness, springing from the need of support and sympathy he himself felt that day, overflowed his heart, and he pressed his fingers to her brow and touched the wrinkles. "I don't like to see those there," he said, and as if in instant response to his whim, her smile smoothed them away. "You'll send me word, Jerome, won't you?" she said, "the babies and I'll be watching and waiting, you know. Oh, I _wish_ we could help!" He smiled his old smile at her loyalty. "Good by," he said; "I'll keep you posted." And he ran down the steps. The rain was slanting down to make an ideal primary day, and Garwood was glad of the waiting carriage which, in the extravagance a man can always justify to himself in the midst of a campaign, he had ordered the night before. Emily watched him drive away, down the streaming street. Once he turned and looked back through the window at her, or she thought he did, and she waved her hand. Then all the morning long she went about the house with the memory of his kiss upon her lips, and she sang at times, though her heart would forever leap into her throat when she thought of the bitter contest going on in the rain that was falling upon the green fields of Polk County. The rain fell steadily in the gloom with an impressiveness that would remind her of the silent fate which that day was deciding Jerome's future and her own.