But you may as well know the truth now, which is that Thatcher is out of it altogether.

You know enough of him to understand that he's not a man to trust with power, and I've done the state and my party a service in turning him out of doors." He had spoken quietly and earnestly, and his words had not been without their effect.

He had never been harsh with her or the children; his manner to-day was kind and considerate.

He had to an extent measurably rehabilitated himself as a heroic public character, a man of honor and a husband to be proud of; but she had not spent a sleepless night and a gray day without fortifying herself against him.

All day her eyes had been fixed upon an abandoned squirrel box in the crotch of an elm outside her window; it had become the repository of her thoughts, the habitation of her sorrows.