"Evidence, evidence! I want no surer evidence of your intent than poor Bernard's wanderings; there's method, sir, even in delirium. If I wished further proof, the fact that you too were in the canal that night would suffice." "Fevered maunderings and a coincidence!" Shelby laughed him in the face, too contemptuous to set him right. "Keep your vote, you pompous ignoramus," he jeered, and left him sputtering. Worsting the choleric physician in argument was a mere matter of keeping one's own temper, and Shelby took no pride in his victory. It was a relief to know that he knew so little, but the possibility remained that, in the weakness of convalescence, Bernard might let fall details more damaging than Dr. Crandall's tissue of half-knowledge and inference. Ruth and pneumonia eliminated, the quarrel might have become public property and welcome, with a likely chance of its working to his advantage; but, alas, he himself had dragged Ruth into it past all elimination, and now Bernard's sickness had whipped up a sea of maudlin sympathy which exposure might easily precipitate in a political tidal wave. From this day forth, event crowded event. The news from the sick-room was the signal for renewed activity all along the line of battle, and the spectre of his great need haunted Shelby with added terrors. Bernard Graves's allies, apt disciples of the late Chuck O'Rourke as they were, jumped at the shining possibilities laid open by their candidate's condition, and, abetted financially by their State Committee, set a pace in corruption unprecedented in the checkered history of the Demijohn. Volney Sprague was powerless. The freebooters listened sedately to his protests and redoubled their offending, well aware that in their candidate's chamber politics could have yet no place. Far from the turmoil, the celebrity ate the jellies of his idolaters, and spent his waking hours in the impractical companionship of a certain Shelley and one John Keats.