"They're working half a day on full day's pay. Joe's hurrying some contract through. I don't understand it very well, but the stone has to be shipped before the canal freezes on account of--something--freight rates--" "Never mind that. What did he say to Kiska about voting--that the men should be ready at such and such a time?" "No, no; I know about that. Before anything happened it was arranged that the men should vote about four o'clock. He merely told Kiska he'd return at three-thirty." "Good, good!" exclaimed Shelby, making ready for action. "Every naturalized mother's son in Little Poland shall vote for me before the train can even whistle. Now, you go home, Cora," he charged, "and drink something hot against this graveyard chill. Keep a stiff upper lip--that's my creed. Everything blows over in time. The scandal is so tall that it will topple of itself. Nobody will believe it after election." "But Joe? Think of him when he learns what they're saying, and that you've outwitted him." Shelby grinned. "That's the situation's one humorous phase," said he. "The two things will neutralize one another's effect,--like Kilkenny cats, you know. He'll not dare raise a row about the votes for fear of lending color to the scandal." But Mrs. Hilliard, whose sense of humor was sluggish this morning, rejoined bitterly;-- "The row will fall to me." "He needn't know your part in this--the matter of the votes; and as for the other thing--well, after all, he is your husband, hard and fast, and you'd best try and patch things up." She straightened, flashing him a stony look, and he braced himself for a hurricane; but to his equal discomfiture she went down beside the shaft in a passionate fit of weeping. "I should be under here," she sobbed; "I should be under here." Shelby, tingling to be gone, shifted from foot to foot, and offered some blundering solace which she put away. "You've ceased to care," she accused. He protested, adding indiscreetly that she had done too much for him for that. "You've filled the place he should have filled!" Shelby was silent, goaded to torture by the lapse of precious minutes. "There's only blackness ahead!" "Don't take the dark view," entreated Shelby, groping desperately for a bright one. "The man can't live always--so much older than you--and then--your life's your own--" The bowed figure shuddered. "It's a dreadful thing to do--but I've thought that, too. I can't help it. You--you are the real one--the real one--" She waited. "Yes." It was screwed from him. "The real one--and if--I know I don't need your promise--but if--" "Yes, yes; of course if--" Neither of them would name the contingency. Shelby contrived a leave-taking, and bounded down the terraced slopes. It was quite noon when he reached the Tuscarora House, but without a thought of food, he got his horse and buggy from the livery, speeding the harnessing with his own hands, and whipped away for Little Poland.