Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/351

 "No, give me the nomination."

"Never!" he yelled with an oath.

"Then I'll expose you in to-morrow morning's paper, and that's the end of you."

McLeod hesitated a moment, and then said, "I'll agree. You've got me. But I'll make one little condition. You must give me the name of your informant."

"The Rev. John Durham."

"I thought as much."

To the amazement of everyone McLeod waived the crown aside and placed it on the head of one of his lieutenants. He returned to Hambright from this dramatic event with an unruffled front. To his cronies he said, "Bah! I was joking. Never had any idea of taking the office for myself. I'm playing for larger stakes. I make these puppets, and pull the strings."

He devoted himself assiduously in the leisure which followed to Mrs. Durham. He never intimated to Durham that he knew anything about the part he had taken in his withdrawal from the Senatorship. Nor had the Preacher told his wife of his discovery. They had quarrelled several times about McLeod. His wife seemed determined to remain loyal to the boy she had taught.

McLeod in his talk with her intimated that he had withdrawn from a desire vaguely forming in his mind to get out of the filth of politics altogether, sooner or later, influenced by her voice alone.

With subtle skill he played upon her vanity and jealousy, and at last felt that he had entangled her so far he could dare a declaration of his feelings. There was one element only in her mental make-up he feared. She held tenaciously the old-fashioned romantic ideals of love. To her it seemed a divine mystery linking the souls that felt it to the infinite. If he could only destroy this divine mystery idea, he felt sure that her sense of isolation, and