The next day the Premier kept to his room, and refused to look at the papers. The cabinet ministers telephoned in vain; he was out, the maid said. He hated them, every one—for their insane laughter their idiotic applause—this disloyal attendance at such a place! He could not speak to them or see them.

When his wife spoke to him, he snapped back at her like an angry rattlesnake, and asked her why she had never tried to develop a mind of her own. Her patience, submissiveness, the abject way she deferred to him and tried to please him—the very qualities he had demanded of her, now infuriated him beyond words. He began to despise her for her spiritless submission.

Fortunately for her, the days that followed took him away from home, and the household breathed easier each time he departed.

"This settles it," said Rosie, the housemaid, when he went out angrily slamming the front door. "I will never marry a member of Parliament, no, not though he goes on his bended knee to ask me. I may not have wealth or fame—but I'll have peace."

"Don't be too sure," said the cook, who was Scotch, and a
Presbyterian. "You can't be sure of any of them—they are all queer.
You never know what a man will do till he's dead."

The Woman's Parliament held sessions for three nights in the city before it began its tour of the country with every night an audience that packed the theatre to the roof. Each night the woman "Premier" took her curtain calls and received the bouquets which came showering in, but not a word could the public find out about her. The papers said her identity would remain a mystery until all the engagements were filled.

On the last night, when Pearl went to her room—she was staying with the President of the Woman's Club—a box of flowers was on her table. When she opened it, she found an armful of American Beauty roses, and a letter. Pearl's face went suddenly aflame like the roses, and a jagged flash of lightning tore her heart. He had not forgotten her!

Hastily locking her door, for no one must interrupt her, Pearl read her letter. She had faced three thousand people two hours before, but her hand trembled now as she read:

"I have been in your audience, Pearl, drinking in every word you say, rejoicing over you, loving you—but glad every minute that I played the game fair. You have won the election—of that I am sure—for you have set the whole Province laughing at the old-style politician. It is easy going for the rest of us now. Our old friend George Steadman has had the ground torn from under his feet. They all think you left Purple Springs to take some gentle and safe job in the Department of Education, and are breathing curses on this mysterious stranger who has upset the foundations of the Government. Driggs suspected as soon as he heard about the play, and he and I came into the city to see for ourselves—we held hands to keep from disgracing ourselves last night when you got up to speak.

"The leader of the Opposition, who seems to be a solid sort of chap, would like to meet you when it is all over—he is well pleased with the women's activities, and especially your part, and wants to meet you personally.

"I do not need to tell you, dear, what I think. I believe you know. I am in a mellow and pleasant state of being able to say 'I told you so.'

"I am not sending you roses because I think you are short of bouquets, but just because there are certain things a red rose can say, that I can not. H.C."

"And why can't you say it?" Pearl whispered, "and why don't you say it, and me hungry for it. Who is stopping you from saying it—I'm sure it's not me."

She threw aside her pride, and going to the phone, called the hotel where she knew he stayed.

"Is Dr. Clay of Millford there?" she asked, trembling with eagerness.

"Just a minute," said the clerk.

Pearl's heart was pounding in her throat, her ears sang, her mouth was dry with excitement. She wanted to hear his voice—she wanted to see him.

It seemed a long, long time—then the clerk's voice, mechanical and dull as the click of an adding machine:

"No, Dr. Clay checked out tonight."

Pearl hung up the receiver listlessly. The ripple of laughter and waves of voices came from the drawing-room below. A company of people had come over from the theatre, some one was calling to her outside her door, asking her if she would come down.

Suddenly it had all become distasteful to her, hollow—useless—vain—what was there in it?—a heavy sense of disappointment was on her. After all, was life going to disappoint her, cheat her—giving her so much, and yet withholding the greatest joy of all?

She caught the roses in her arms, and kissed them fiercely. "I love you—red roses," she said, "but you are not enough. You do not say much either, but I wish you would tell me why he is so stingy with me!"

* * * * *

In a week, the election was over, and the Government defeated. The newspapers, in red headlines, gave the women the credit, and declared it to be the most sensational campaign the country had ever seen. "The barbed arrows of ridicule had pierced the strong man's armor," one editorial said, "and accomplished something that the heaviest blows of the Opposition had been powerless to achieve." Dr. Clay had defeated George Steadman by a large majority, and the Millford "Mercury" was free to express itself editorially, and did so with great vigor.

The Premier had fought valiantly to the last, but his power was gone—the spell broken—he could no longer rouse an audience with his old-time eloquence. His impassioned passages had lost their punch, for the bitterness, the rage which filled his heart, showed in his words and weakened them; and the audiences who before had been kindled with his phrases, showed a disposition now to laugh in the wrong place.

The week of the campaign had been to him a week of agony, for he knew he was failing as a leader, and only his stern pride kept him going. He would let no one say he was a "welsher." The machine worked night and day, and money was freely spent, and until the last, he hoped, his party would be returned, and then he could resign and retire honorably. He did not believe the machine could be defeated. They had too many ways of controlling the vote.

When the news of the Government's defeat began to come in from the country places—the city seats having all gone to the Opposition—the old man went quietly home, with a set face of ashy pallor. He walked slowly, with sagging shoulders, and the cane which he used, did not beat the pavement in rage, but gropingly felt its way, uncertainly, as if the hand which guided it was hesitant and weak.

In his house on Water Street, a big, square brick house, with plain verandahs, the ex-Premier sat alone that night. A few of his followers—the close-in favorites—had called to see him, but had been denied. His wife, flutteringly made excuses. He sat in his big black leather chair, looking into the fireplace, where no fire was kindled, and when one of the maids had come in to build the fire, he had gently told her he liked it better as it was, dull, bleak and dead, it suited the occasion—and she had gone out hurriedly, and in the kitchen burst into tears.

"It ain't natural for him to be mild like that," she sobbed to the cook. "I'd rather have him damn me up and down. The old man's heart is broken, that's what it is. He's sittin' there so calm and quiet—it would make any one cry that has known him in his good days. I don't believe we'll ever hear him rip and tear again—the blessed old dear."

"Well indeed, I'll be glad if we don't," said the cook grimly. "He's raised enough hell in his time for one man, if he never does another turn at it. I've put up with him for over fifteen years. I saw him drive out Master Jim, and Jim's poor wife, with the dearest little pet of a grandson any man ever had. He was sorry enough after, but that didn't bring them back. I hope he will sit still for a while and think it all over, and give the poor missis a rest. She's been bawled at, and sworn at enough too, and her that gentle and pleasant."

"She's cryin' in her room now," said the housemaid, dabbin' her eyes with her handkerchief and wishin' he'd come up and rage over anything."

"O, is she?" said the cook. "I'll bet she's not. The house is so quiet it makes her nervous—that's all! But she'll get used to it. O no, Rosie dear, he's got his, and it's about time. I ain't worryin' over him, for all I like the old man—but I believe the day of judgment begins here. He's reaping what he sowed—and all I wonder at is that the harvest has been so late."

"That's all right for you—you're a Presbyterian," said Rosie tearfully, "but I belong to the Army. You know God's side of it bettern' I do, but we're all for the sinner, and I can't bear to see him so quiet and mild. It's just like havin' a corpse in the house to see him there in front of the dead fire; I wouldn't wonder if the morning light will find him cold and stiff in death." Rosie's tears gushed forth anew at this sad picture.

"No chance," said the cook, "I haven't cooked breakfast for him for fifteen years without knowin' him better than that. He'll come back."

But the Presbyterian cook, so sure of her theology and her knowledge of human nature, had no breakfast to cook for him the next day, for the ex-Premier kept his bed, and declined to see any one except his wife, whom he did not let out of his sight. His gentleness was terrible—he was even pleasant. When Rosie brought the mail to the door, he actually thanked her, which brought on another paroxysm of tears, and made even the cook shake her head doubtfully.

He spoke little, and made no complaint. He was only tired, he said—just a little weary. No, he would not see a doctor—it was not a doctor he needed.

Beside him sat his wife, the quiet, self-effacing little woman who had had no thought or ambition apart from him. Under half closed eyes, he watched her, wonderingly. What were the thoughts of her heart—this gentle-faced woman who had so tenderly cared for him, and put up with him all these years. Many a time he had made her cry—he had driven away her son—and her grandson—and yet she had offered no word of remonstrance. How old and sad she looked when her face was in repose. It was a face of deep lines and great sadness—a wistful, troubled, hungry face, but dominated by a self-control of iron power. She sat beside the bed, without moving; waiting, watchful.

"You've been good to me, Jessie," he said at last, as he stroked her hand.

She started nervously.

"Better than I have been to you—but I am going to be better—it is not too late yet."

With eyes of alarm, growing wider every moment—she watched him as he spoke.

"I guess I needed a set-back," he said, "and I got it—and I've learned a lot in a short time. One thing was that you are more to me than I thought. My friends—in politics—were everything to me—but they valued me only for what I could do for them. I could harangue the crowd—gather in the votes—keep things going. I remembered every one, slapped every one on the back, called them by their first name—and it went. But they laughed at me behind my back. Their only interest in me was that I could carry elections. With you, it has been different. I don't know why you stuck to me. Why did you, Jessie?"

Without replying, she hastily left the room—and phoned for the doctor.

The papers that night reported the ex-Premier's condition as "causing grave apprehension to his friends."

When Pearl read it in the evening papers, she made a quick resolve. A letter must be sent to Purple Springs.

When Annie Gray and Jim went to the post-office for the mail, two days after the election, they were not disappointed, for Pearl had written.

"It is all over," wrote Pearl, "and the Government has gone down to defeat. The new Government will make good its promises too. But I am sure from what I have heard and seen of your father-in-law, you have nothing to fear from him. He would not take little Jim away from you even if he could. You can tell the people of Purple Springs all about yourself now, and wouldn't I like to see Mrs. Cowan's face when she hears who your father-in-law is?"

"Tonight's paper says he is not well, and I am wondering if you hadn't better come in to the city, you and Jim. You will know best about this. I feel sorry for Mr. Graham. He is a domineering old man, full of prejudice and narrow ways. There could be no progress so long as he was at the head of affairs—so he had to be removed. He held the door shut just as long as he could, and when the crash came, quite naturally he was trampled on, and that is never a pleasant experience. But the whole thing has a pathetic side. I wish it could have been settled without this.

"The night of the election, women paraded the streets, singing and cheering, mad with joy, it made my eyes blur to see them. I am sorry it had to come to a show-down, for it seems to set men and women against each other—at least, I know some men feel that way. Of course we had lots of men helping us—we could not have got far without them. Peter Neelands has been one of the best. He was elected in one of the city seats, and we are all so glad.

"Here are some stamps and two balloons for Jim. I do hope you will come—. Lovingly, Pearl."

* * * * *

The winds of June, which whipped the dust of Water Street into miniature whirlwinds under the noses of the horses, were heavy with the unmistakable perfume of wild roses. The delivery man, sniffing the air, decided he would go that night to the Beach, just to see the fields of roses; the streetcar-conductor went suddenly homesick for a sight of the poplar trees, with the roses on the headlands, and the plushy touch of green grass under his feet, and the wizened little Scotch milliner across the road took what she called a "scunner" at the silk and muslin flowers, with their odious starchy, stuffy smell, and wondered where the farmer was, who two years ago had asked her to marry him. The wind—heavy with the perfume that stirred so many hearts with longing, eddied carelessly into the garden of the big brick house with the plain verandas, doubling round to the garden at the back, where, in an old-fashioned rocking chair with chintz cushions, sat the ex-Premier.

The wind, still charged with wild roses, stirred the lilac trees and mountain ash, and circled noiselessly around the chair where he sat, and played queer tricks with his memory, for all of us are young in June, when the pageant of summer is passing by.

"I like to see you knitting, Jessie," he said gently "it is a peaceful art, untouched by worldly cares. I wish I could hear hens cackling, and the drowsy sounds of a farmyard, all set in nature's honest key. I'm tired of people and machinery and telephones and committees, and all these other inventions of the devil."

Rosie, scrubbing the veranda, hearing the last part of the sentence, piously thanked God for the master's returning health of body and mind, and flattened her head against the veranda post, to catch more.

"The things I have given my life to," he said sadly, "have fallen away from me—I built on a foundation of sand, and when the rains descended and the floods came, my house fell and left me by the ruins, groping in the ashes."

"It isn't so bad as that, James," his wife said timidly. "You are a respected man still, you know you are—you have plenty of friends, if you would only let them come. It's no disgrace for a public man to be defeated."

"It's not that, Jessie," he said. "It doesn't matter to me now what the world thinks, it can't think any worse of me than I think of it. No, the bitterest part of all this to me is that I have none of my own. I want some one of my own. I was too harsh—too hasty."

"If Jim had lived," she began, wistfully—

The front veranda bell pealed loudly, and Rosie hastily wiped her hands on her petticoat, and went to answer it, sorry to miss any part of the conversation.

"I won't see any one," said the ex-Premier, again. "She knows—I won't. Go and tell her I won't."

When Rosie opened the door, a card was put in her hand, and the visitor, a young lady, asked her if she would be good enough to give it to the ex-Premier.

"He won't see you," said Rosie quickly. "He won't see any one. I am turning them away by the dozens."

The visitor took the card from Rosie's hand, and hastily wrote a few words on it. Rosie told the cook about it afterwards.

"She had eyes like a fairy princess, lips like cherries, and the nicest clothes, but you could tell she wasn't thinkin' about them. I just wanted her to stay and talk to me. 'Will you give this to him,' she said to me, 'I'll wait here, and if he doesn't want to see me—it is all right—I will go away—but I think he will want to see me,' says she, with a smile at me that made me want him to see her too, and she sat down on one of the veranda chairs.

"When I gave him the card, he read it out loud—ain't he the nicest ever? Lots of people wouldn't have read it out. 'Miss Pearl Watson,' says he, and what's this, 'teacher at Purple Springs,' and he nearly jumped out of his chair.

"'My God!' he says, and he reached for his cane, like as if he was going somewhere. 'Bring her here,' he said, and his voice was more natural than it has been since—it made me all prickle," said Rosie.

When Pearl was taken around to the back garden, Rosie retired to a point of vantage on the sleeping-porch above, and got most of the conversation, by abandoning all scrubbing operations, and sitting very still.

The ex-Premier's wife arose as if to leave, but he motioned her to stay.

"This concerns you too, Jessie," he said.

For a moment a silence fell on them, as the wind gently stirred the lilacs in front of them and a humming bird on silken wings went flashing past, like a flower that had come alive.

"You are a teacher, your card says, at Purple Springs. Is that in the far North?" The ex-Premier endeavored to speak calmly.

"No," said Pearl, "it is only a hundred miles from here."

His face clouded with disappointment.

"But it was named for the valley in the far North, by a woman who came from there."

"Where is the woman now," he asked, with a fine attempt to make his question casual.

"I came to tell you about her," said Pearl, with evasion. "That is, of course, if you would like to hear. It is an interesting story."

He motioned to her to begin, trembling with excitement.

Pearl told the story that had been told to her the night she and Annie Gray had sat by the dying fire, told it, with many a touch of pathos and realism, which made it live before him. His eyes never left her face, though he could not discover how much she knew, and yet the very fact of her coming to him seemed to prove that she knew everything.

The old man's face twitched painfully when she spoke of the young widow's quarrel with her husband's father.

"He was not accustomed to having his wishes thwarted," said Pearl simply. "He was a man whose word was law in his own household and among his friends. But she had the freedom of the wilderness in her blood, and they quarrelled violently. He was determined to send the boy to England for his education."

"He only said that—he wouldn't have done it—he loved the boy too well," he burst in, impatiently.

"Well, of course, the young mother did not know that—not being a mind-reader, she had no way of telling—and besides, he threatened to take the child from her altogether. He was his son's heir, and he was therefore the guardian of the child. The law was with him, I believe, in that. That is one of the laws that have roused the women to take a hand in public matters.

"So, to save her boy, to keep him for her very own—she allowed her father-in-law to think she had not been legally married. She gave up her good name, to keep her boy. She went away—with only her two hands to make a living for them both."

"Where is she?" cried the old man, with something of his old imperiousness.

Pearl did not at once reply. He should hear all of the story. She did not minimize the hard struggle that Annie Gray had had in her attempts at self support, even when she saw the old man wince. He got it all.

"When she came to the farm on the Souris, she could not tell her story—the fear was on her night and day that she might be discovered, and the child taken from her."

"No judge in the country would do that," he cried stormily. "She had nothing to fear even if—if—"

"Unfortunately," said Pearl quietly, "she did not know that. She believed her father-in-law. She thought it was true, because he had said so, and she knew that the illegitimate child belongs to the mother, and to her alone, so she chose to let it stand at that.

"The people at Purple Springs adopted the name she had put upon her gate—but ostracized her. The fact that she did not tell them anything of her part, was proof to them she was not a good woman, and a man from Ontario, who knew something about the case, fed the curiosity of her neighbors with gossip which confirmed their suspicions."

"For three years she has lived alone, not a neighbor has come to her door—and she has kept herself and little Jim; has worked the farm, educated her boy, for the trustees would not let him come to school—kept sweet and sane in spite of it all.

"When I went to see her, she cried with joy to see a human being of kindly intention in her house. But the neighbors cut me dead, and kept the children home from school because I went to live with her."

A groan broke from him. "Poor girl!" he said brokenly, "Poor girl, she didn't deserve that."

Pearl's heart was softening, so she hurried on.

"The little fellow got into a fight at school, because a boy said things about his mother. He is the sweetest tempered child I ever knew, but he knew when to fight, and thrashed a boy a head taller than himself; and the trustees turned him out."

"What kind of people are they?" he stormed. "It was a brave thing for the boy to defend his mother—a brave thing I tell you. The other boy should have been expelled—you are the teacher—why did you let them?"

Pearl let him rage, then very quietly she said, "It happened three years before I knew them—but you should not blame the boy, Mr. Graham, or even the trustees. They were under no obligation to protect the woman or her boy. The boy's own grandfather had said much worse things about her than the boy at the school. He not only insulted her, but his own son as well—when the rage was on him. So why should strangers spare her?"

"Go on," he said hoarsely, "let me hear it all."

She was standing in front of him now, and her eyes were driving the truth deep into his soul. Something about her eyes, or her voice with its rich mellowness, caused him to start and exclaim.

"Who are you, girl—tell me, who you are—I have heard your voice somewhere! My God! was it you? was it you?"

"Yes," said Pearl, "it was me; and when the women of the city here, who had come to you and tried to break down your stubborn prejudices, tried to reason with you, but found it all in vain; when they told me that first night to think of some sad case that I had known of women who had suffered from the injustice of the law and men's prejudice, and strike without mercy, I thought of your daughter-in-law and all that she had suffered. I saw again the hungry look in her sweet face, when I went to see her. I saw the gray hairs and the lines of sorrow; I saw again the heroic efforts she makes to give her boy everything that the world is bent on denying him—I thought of these things—and the rest was easy. There was no other way, sir; you would not listen; you would not move an inch—you had to be broken!"

Speechless, almost breathless, he looked at her—all the fight had gone out of him.

"I am going now, sir," she said. "I have delivered her message. She only wanted to clear your son's memory. She will tell the people now who she is, and prove her marriage, for little Jim's sake.

"Don't go, girl," he cried, "sit down—tell me more. Tell me what the boy is like—how big is he?" "The boy is like you," said Pearl, "a tall lad for ten; clever far beyond his years."

"Does he know about me—does he hate me—has she told him?" His voice was pitiful in its eagerness.

"Not a word—the boy has a heart of love, and as sunny a disposition as any child could have. She has made his life a dream of happiness, in spite of all."

The old man's face began to quiver, and a sob tore its way upward from his heart. His face was hidden in his hands.

"Would she ever forgive me?" he said, at last, lifting his head. "Would she believe me if I said I was sorry—would she have pity on a broken old man, who sees the evil he has done—would the boy let me love him—and try to make it up to him and his mother? You know her—why don't you answer me girl? Is there no hope that she might forgive me?"

Pearl stepped back without a word, as Annie Gray came quickly across the lawn. She had been standing in the shade of a maple tree, waiting for Pearl's signal.

A cry broke from Mrs. Graham, Jim's mother, a welcoming cry of joy.

The old man rose to his feet, uncertainly holding out both his hands.

"My girl," he cried "I don't deserve it—but can you forgive me?"

And Annie Gray, who had suffered so bravely, so tearlessly, found her heart swept clean of resentment or bitter memory as she looked at him, for it was Jim's father, old, sad and broken, who called to her, and to Jim's father's arms she went with a glad cry.

"Dad!" she said, "Oh Dad! Little Jim and I are very tired of being orphans!"

And on the back veranda behind them, where she had been crouching with her ear to the paling, Rosie came out of hiding and burst out like a whole hallelujah chorus, and with the empty scrub pail in one hand, and the brush in the other, beat the cymbals as she sang:

"O that will be glory for me,
Glory for you and glory for me,
When by His grace I shall look on His face,
That will be glory for me!"