[Illustration: "’I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to re-enter it’"] He turned and went into his own study, closed and locked the door. Alicia’s mood of terror changed suddenly to one of fury. She had heard of these people who had no understanding of the temptations that beset the weaker ones. Her husband had decided everything as if she were a child, or rather as if she had not existed; he had hardly listened to her stumbling regrets, her sobbed-out confession. In one short hour it seemed as if his love had turned to the bitterest hate. If he would but have been reasonable something might have been done, but without one moment’s hesitation he was sacrificing himself and her, too. She threw herself upon the bed, torn with fury and remorse and a multitude of emotions, which she could neither control nor understand. The servants in the house knew that something had happened, and when dinner was announced did not expect either the Senator or Mrs. March to come down. Senator March, however, did so, with the same extraordinary coolness and courage with which he would have dined the night before his execution. The door-bell had been ringing constantly, and cards, letters and telegrams had begun to arrive in shoals. No one had been admitted, but half-a-dozen reporters were camped out on the pavement. When Senator March’s solitary dinner was over he returned to his study and called up by telephone his man of business, James Watson, arranging with him to come at ten o’clock with his stenographer, prepared to work all night if necessary. As the evening wore on, the ringing of the telephone and door-bells, the delivery of despatches and letters increased, but only one person was admitted other than Watson, who arrived punctually at ten. About eleven o’clock an elderly gentleman, whom the footman recognised as the Secretary of State, called, and when the footman gave the stereotyped message, that Senator March asked to be excused, the Secretary paid no attention to it, walked across the hall and upstairs into the study. Watson and the stenographer rose at once, and left the floor clear for the great man and the Senator. "What about this yarn in the afternoon newspapers?" asked the Secretary abruptly as soon as the door closed. "I have just telegraphed to the Governor of the State that a vacancy will exist in the Senate after twelve o’clock to-morrow," answered Senator March; "I am prepared to confess everything before the Senate to-morrow and resign my seat." "What have you to confess?" asked the Secretary, "it was your----" He had meant to say "your wife," but something in Senator March’s eyes stopped him. "I am the guilty person," he said, looking the Secretary steadily in the eye, "it is better for me and better for the party that I should get out now." "What do you mean?" cried the Secretary of State.