He was scourging, dissecting, the weather-beaten men before him, as, with a difference, he had scourged, dissected her.

She found herself exulting in his powers of tyranny, in the naked thrust of his words, so nervous, so pitiless.

And then by a sudden flash she thought of him by Mrs.Hurd's fire, the dying child on his knee, against his breast.

"Here," she thought, while her pulses leapt, "is the leader for me--for these.

Let him call, I will follow." It was as though he followed the ranging of her thought, for suddenly, when she and his hearers least expected it, his tone changed, his storm of speech sank.