he not be a liar and a poltroon?  If he signed it, the senatorship would slip through his fingers.  The thought occurred to him to send for Elton and throw himself on his mercy, but he shrank from such an interview.  Elton was a business man, and a promise was a promise.  He had enjoyed the consideration for his promise; his notes were secure and the hypothecated bonds had been redeemed.  He was on his feet and Governor, thanks to Elton’s interposition, and now he was called on to do his part—­to pay the fiddler.  He must sign the bill.

Lyons had five days in which to consider the matter.  At the end of that time if he neither signed nor vetoed the bill, it would become law without his signature.  He was at bay, and the time for deliberation was short.  An incubus of disappointment weighed upon his soul and clouded his brow.  His round, smooth face looked grieved.  It seemed cruel to him that such an untoward piece of fortune should confront him just at the moment when this great reward for his political services was within his grasp and his opportunities for eminent public usefulness assured.  He brooded over his quandary in silence for twenty-four hours.  On the second day he concluded to speak of the matter to Selma.  He knew that she kept a general run of public affairs.  Not infrequently she had asked him questions concerning measures before the Legislature, and he was pleasantly aware that she was ambitious to be regarded as a politician.  But up to this time there had been no room for question as to what his action as Governor should be in respect to any measure.  It had happened, despite his attitude of mental comradeship with his wife, that he had hitherto concealed from her his most secret transactions.  He had left her in the dark in regard to his true dealings with Williams & Van Horne; he had told her nothing as to his straitened circumstances, the compact by which he had been made Governor, and his relief at the hands of Elton from threatened financial ruin.  Reluctance, born of the theory in his soul that these were accidents in his life, not typical happenings, had sealed his lips.  He was going to confide in her now not because he expected that Selma’s view of this emergency would differ from his own, but in order that she might learn before he acted that he was under an imperative obligation to sign the bill.  While he was sitting at home in the evening with the topic trembling on his tongue, Selma made his confession easy by saying, “I have taken for granted that you will veto the gas bill.”

Selma had indeed so assumed.  In the early stages of the bill she had been ignorant of its existence.  During the last fortnight, since the controversy had reached an acute phase and public sentiment had been aroused against its passage, she had been hoping that it would pass so that Lyons might have the glory of returning it to the Legislature without his signature.  She had reasoned that he would be certain to veto