of and honesty party lines were everywhere being broken through by men who found conviction stronger than party and tom himself felt his heart burn within him at the consciousness that the support he was to give his cousin was a direct of his sincere belief to be honest he must have who was set aside almost solely because the large interest which tom represented was supporting the latter there had been a good deal of by richard but tom s influence and tom s millions had everywhere been his card had an inherited place in the boston political world and in this particular matter no other man s word was of so much weight as his so that he felt to o in the bundle of time the full the responsibility of the he was to make which although would practically settle the matter richard had taken his seat opposite his cousin and with sparkling of lights of and of laughter the dinner went on tom could not eat and with gloomy eyes he looked down the table from his seat on the right of the eminent who presided his money paid for this feast at which he sat so unwillingly and to which he was brought to offer up his political honor as one more sacrifice to the of his tyrant his was almost it seemed to him that he must break out in some desperate deed he replied mechanically to what was said to him his face like a mask assuming a smile at the numerous which flew faster and faster he thought of and how she would despise him if she knew he had never dared tell her the truth but with painfully wrought excuses had explained the delay of their marriage until even her perfect faith was strained to wonder sitting at the feast to night tom ground his teeth and cursed the fate which made him wrong the heart that trusted him he looked across at his a political dinner cousin whose sallow cheek was flushed with triumph and a bitter leaped to his lips at the bondage in which he was held � an old purpose long cherished took new shape in his mind suppose he should rise in his place and lay bare all his whole wretched story to the honorable gentlemen dining here after all the ordeal seemed less dreadful than to stand up before them as for his cousin whatever was noble in his soul asserted itself and he sat more erect as his determination took form he might lose all that was dearest to him he shivered and set his teeth together at the thought of going out from this brilliant company a disgraced and man the impossibility of making them believe in the innocence of his intentions in writing that check came over him like a blast of icy air that these men who had all his life given to him the honor which belonged to a member of the proud old family into which he had been born should to morrow ever and ever after look when he encountered them seemed to him a punishment too terrible for human nature to endure the friends of his fine old father the companions of his college days the men he knew and in the bundle of time liked at the club all seemed to come in review before him passing his mental self as he sat there in the gay over the wine with averted faces and mien to confess seemed to him to mean the of all honor and all happiness he could not explain � could he even persuade he could only rise in his place and confess what he had done and that he had borne the burden of it so long that it was intolerable to bear it longer he would not even richard he thought with a of contempt behind which perhaps lay some subtle self if those who heard could and did read between the lines of his story that was not his concern he would not even mention his cousin s name but he almost groaned aloud as he thought of her to tell the truth meant giving her up and he reflected bitterly that not even the fact that he had never been so worthy of her as this confession would make him could not change the fact that he could not ask her to unite her with those of a man disgraced he would be worthy of her he said to himself even if he lost her he would not add to his the crime of being false in this public act it a political dinner was in no small degree a sense that to night he was acting in a sort of public capacity which gave him the firmness to hold to the resolution to speak the vital force which despite all corruption all and all selfishness does still live in our free institutions for every honest man strengthened him to go forward he might perhaps have lacked resolution to make this supreme sacrifice of himself had private issues been at stake but in his mind a throb of that patriotism which is the hope of the country woke all the nobility and fire of his soul whatever may have been the weakness or wickedness of his previous hfe he was at this moment truly and nobly a hero he set his teeth together and waited what he had to say in his mind and mingling it with the words in which he meant to tell the whole naked truth to at last the dinner meanwhile wore on and almost before tom realized it the air was full of cigar smoke and the for the evening was on his feet what he said poor tom could not have told had his life depended upon it he smiled to himself with dry lips as he fancied what would be the 