He became conscious of Frank Lapham standing at his side. He felt rather than saw that his wife and Tommy and Nannette were just behind him, breathlessly awaiting the words he was trying to force from his parched lips.

The Honorable Josiah Hillory and Judge Morrison, followed by a throng of reporters, were ascending the steps, and Coulton saw in Judge Morrison's hand the manuscript of a speech of notification. He knew that it would eulogize him to the skies, and he knew that every word of that speech would cut him like a knife. No matter what his later years had been, Coulton could not rub the stain of jail from his conscience.

Judge Morrison was extending his hand to Coulton and the crowd was looking on eagerly. The shrewd old jurist-politician felt very certain of himself. He did not believe that Coulton was bluffing. He knew him too well for that. But he did believe that he held the whip hand over the designated candidate for the Senate, and that Coulton stood alone in his amazing determination to decline to run for office.

COULT

OULTON, however, read that look in the judge's eyes, and, rallying himself with a tremendous effort, retained his grasp of Morrison's hand as he stepped to the veranda rail once more and faced his ordeal and his audience with God-fearing courage.

"Please let me have my own way in this meeting," he said in a tone tempered with tears. Yet it was the serious speech of a determined man. He had determined upon his stand and there would be no deviation from it. His task was not to refuse the nomination, but to make his admirers realize that he was doing that which was right and just and proper in insisting that he should refuse. He must make them agree with him, uphold him, and give him a greater vote of confidence in their acquiescence than they would have at the polls had he consented to accept.

Frank Lapham touched him on the shoulder and whispered. "Coulton, you're nervous," he said in an inaudible tone. "Let Judge Morrison make his opening address and then tell the crowd whatever you like. I still think you should go on and submit to their wishes. In fact, I am almost tempted to step forward and tell them myself what you have said to me. It's a hundred to one they wouldn't believe it, and if they did I believe—”

Coulton swung around upon his heel and faced the bank president. "Frank Lapham," he said very slowly and softly, yet firmly, "I have asked these friends of mine to let me handle this meeting as I wish. I expect you, who are an

almost lifelong friend, to give in to my whim more readily than the others!"

There was a note of pathos in his inflection of the word almost. Lapham, with a sigh, stepped back and spoke reassuringly to Mrs. Coulton.

"I understand him," he told her, as Tommy and Nannette looked wonderingly at the banker. "Let him do as he asks."

Someone turned the bright shaft of a calcium which had been brought up in an automobile on the worn, haggard, but still handsome features of the candidate. The broad chest of Coulton heaved and his hands twitched.

"I find it very hard to tell you what is in my heart," he said, in a clear, calm tone, which belied the seething, gnawing fires within his breast. "I find it hard to tell it to you so that you will understand and sympathize, and fully agree with me. But I believe you will-if you will listen patiently while I tell you an unknown chapter in the life of Samuel D. Coulton, the man you honor by asking him to represent you in the United States Senate."

Judge Morrison looked nervously from the speaker to Josiah Hillery. He also gave a questioning glance in the direction of Frank Lapham. Hillery was plainly as perturbed as Morrison, but the banker shook his head advising them to maintain silence and give Coulton free rein.

"You have offered me an office which ranks high in the councils of the nation. It is an office to which none but the worthiest and the ablest should be elected or even considered—”

FR

ROM the rear of the throng, a sturdy voice interrupted him. "Three cheers for the squarest man ever nominated for Senator from this State!"

"It's yours!" Judge Morrison shouted to Coulton, as the cheers were given. "As I saidyou win in a walk. Cut out the nonsense and let me read you my speech of notification. It's a whirlwind!"

Coulton sadly shook his head. It seemed as if the pain in his heart was almost physical, so great was his suffering in this moment which should have been one of the proudest in his caIt might well have been his initial step towards the Presidency itself; but he knew he would never dwell in any other mansion than the one on whose porch he now stood.

reer.

Silence was finally obtained and, once more, Coulton went on with his trial. And it was a trial, a mockery that was exquisite torture. He was being tried before the bar of his own conscience. He was paying a price for an early, youthful indiscretion, which others might for

give-and which he himself might condonebut he would not let himself escape the penalty he believed he should exact of his ambition.

"Please do not interrupt me, my friends," he said. "What I am about to tell you is a difficult thing to phrase. But you must know it. I have never before bared my soul to any living being, except my old friend, Mr. Lapham. My wife and children do not know what I am going to say, but it hurts me more to say it to you than it does even to them. They will be more sympathetic, perhaps; but I feel that in having to give you this information I stand in the place of a man who has cheated his neighbors and-" he paused brokenly-"himself!" he managed to

utter.

T

HE reporters were writing furiously now, promised to be a most sensational story, and the crowd stood spellbound.

"To accept this nomination," Coulton began, "would be like obtaining a thing of precious value under false pretenses. You have known me as a hard worker, as a successful business man, and you have given me your friendship as well as your complete confidence. I cannot betray that confidence. Under the surface which you admire is a shame of which you do not know."

He paused for a moment, set his jaw firmly, and then said slowly, but very distinctly:

"I have been in jail."

The crowd gasped, and Mrs. Coulton swayed a little as her son slipped his arm firmly about her.

"It startles you, but it is true,” Coulton continued, "and, because it is true, I must refuse the high honor you offer me. I do so not because my political opponents might make capital of it, but because my own conscience forbids my running for office. It is a penalty I must inflict upon myself, an example of self-chastisement and true repentance I owe to others in the unfortunate predicament in which I found myself."

TH

HEN, as his audience listened spellbound to his dramatic, pathetic narration, Coulton told them of the hungry lad, desperate and despondent. "It was probably because of my shame that I must have impressed the police magistrate as being a degenerate criminal. I was bitter at first: but, during my term in jail. I took sober council with myself. I prayed for guidance, and it came. I stepped from prison with a fresh point of view and a fresh determination to begin again. The boy I once was had died. I will not dishonor him by telling you

Coulton shook his head. "I have not related this painful story in order to gain your sympathy, but in order that you may know the truth about my life before I came to Meadville. Since that day, thank God, I have never had cause to feel ashamed. My life, since that day, has been an open book. I've been able to look every one of you squarely in the face; I've enjoyed the happy life of a man who lives rightly."

For a moment there was silence after he had finished. The crowd stood staring at him unbelievingly. If these words had come from the lips of another, or if they had been printed in the columns of a newspaper, they would instantly have been branded as infamous lies. Yet these hundreds of men and women had just heard Samuel D. Coulton deliberately and in detail blacken his own character.

Then the reaction set in. The crowd seemed to see the flash-back of that picture of the hungry youth, out of work, stealing fruit to keep from starving. His hearers could well-imagine that young Coulton's shame had made him seem a sullen, hardened criminal, who had deceived judge and jury. And, suddenly, there startled a ripple of good-natured laughter. It brought the flush of shame to Coulton's cheeks, for he misunderstood it.

His

Mrs. Coulton stepped hastily to his side and slipped her hand into that of her husband. son and daughter drew closer in a bond of sympathy and sorrow.

But it was the president of the bank who stepped forward and took the stage.

“My friends," Mr. Lapham began. "You have heard what Mr. Coulton has said. It is but another proof of his great conscience and his absolutely flawless character. Who among us has not committed as great or greater crimes at some time in his life? We all know that our punitive system makes mistakes, and, sometimes, unjustly punishes. To-day the young filcher of fruit would have been helped by reform agents, and not penalized as was this man when he was a boy. His indiscretion was committed thirty-five years ago! Things were different then."

A great shout of approval went up. Coulton stood with bowed head and closed eyes, but Lapham did not intend to let his control of the crowd escape him now. He had that crowd in the hollow of his hand, and he knew it.

"When the news of the nomination first came

to him," he said, "Mr. Coulton told me this story, that had been buried in his heart in all the years he had been building up the wonderful career that has resulted in his nickname 'Old Integrity.' I begged him to say nothing of it. I tried to assure him that other men with real stains on their reputations have held officemen far less worthy than he. But this marvelous man would not hear of it. It was not the fear of exposure by his opponents during the campaign, but the deep-rooted thought that he must not run for office. He wished to decline without revealing his true reason. That was but natural; for he did not care to pain his wife and children with the story he has so fearlessly told you. But when you pressed him, as you had every right to do, he said-just what you have heard to-night"Coulton! Coulton! Coulton!" roared the hundreds of voices. "Coulton's good enough for us!"

A

LOOK of ecstacy came into Mrs. Coulton's eyes as the tears welled from her husband's. They were the tears of a strong man moved more deeply than he had ever been moved in his life.

"What did I tell you!" shouted Judge Morrison eagerly in Coulton's ear. "Now you've had your way. Let me go on with my notification speech and then you talk to 'em again and accept, man, accept. It's a walkover!"

All was babel for a few moments, during which Coulton tried to get a new grip on himself. At length he did so.

As the crowd realized that he was about to speak, it became silent, and his words rang out with a new crispness, a new joy, a new ton of conviction.

“You cannot imagine how my heart has responded to your wonderful vote of confidence, your wonderful forgiveness, and your evident love for me," Coulton began. "It has been balm to the pain that was torturing me when I spoke, and which has tortured me for days and nights, as I thought of these dreaded moments. But I am going to ask you to bear with me just once more, and that you will think carefully of what I am going to say now."

He paused, evidently overcome with emotion, yet clear in his diction and erect and soldierly in his poise. There was not a sound until he began again.

"Perhaps because of my own early experience, I have been keenly interested all my life in the reform and the future of those discharged from our prisons. I have had opportunity to be helpful to many such unfortunates, and I have had

the great delight of seeing many of them become earnest, law-abiding, useful men, happy in their new life of right doing. I have rejoiced in it, as I have in my own successful and honorable walk through life's long path.

"But often in the still of the night, I have thought that this experience might come to me one day. And I prepared, yes, steeled myself to face it. Greater than individual virtue, greater than ability and industry, are the institutions of our great nation. Every office within the gift of the people, from the highest to the lowest, is an office of grave responsibility. No man should be elected to any post of public trust unless that man in every daily step of his life has walked in such a manner as to reflect credit upon the office and the electorate that places him there.

"It may be true that dishonest men have held office. It may be true that some of the great have had stains on their shields. Perhaps their subsequent careers have more than condoned for their early offenses. It may be true that I have done so. It may be that I would make an able and conscientious Senator. I hope to God I would-and-before God, I wish I could. you must bear with my firm and unbending belief. The shadow of prison bars-no matter how faint-has no place on the form of a Senator of the United States. That is why I cannot and will not accept this nomination. That is why I will not serve as United States Senator from this State!"

TH

But

HERE was fire in his eyes as he finished, and the crowd stood there in dumb amazement. Slowly Coulton turned away and looked with emotion into the blazing eyes of his wife.

Lapham stepped to the edge of the porch, and his deep voice made itself heard above the enthusiastic din.

"Fellow citizens," he said, "I believe you will agree with me that Samuel D. Coulton is a greater man this moment than he ever would have been had he sat in the United States Senate or even in the Presidential chair. He has set this country-and particularly its office seekers

-an example from which it can never swerve. The man must measure up to his office to the last inch."

The wildest cheers confirmed these words, and Coulton bowed, deeply affected, as he walked slowly in doors with his wife and children.

"Sam," said Mrs. Coulton, as he took her in his arms, "I was never so proud of you in all my life. You're bigger than the biggest man I ever dreamed you'd be!”

THE END.