That last tramp was a thing of vagueness to Jim. How long it was, how many minutes, hours, days it required to traverse the distance, he did not know. It was a hades of blackness and weariness and pain. At last they arrived at Gilders’s shanty. Steve laid Marie on his bed. Jim waited for no bed, but sank to the floor, and the night held no further consciousness for him.
Somehow Steve procured a neighbor woman who gave of her kindliness and skill to Marie, ministering, watching through the night. Steve let Jim lie as he had fallen. Sleep, he knew, would work its own reviving miracle.
On caucus days or election days it had been Zaanan Frame’s custom to sit in his office and receive his friends. There were few who did not take that opportunity to shake Zaanan’s hand, to show themselves at his levee. Most came because it was their pleasure to do so; some came because they regarded it as the part of wisdom.
But on this caucus day Zaanan sat alone. Outside on the steps was Dolf Springer, taciturn, doleful. That was all. The old man was deserted. Diversity had forsaken him on the day of his downfall. The power he had wielded for more than a generation had dropped from him, leaving in the place of the political dictator merely a tired, weary, disappointed old man.
He had taken some comfort in that greatest of all books, the _Justices’ Guide_. Now he laid it aside and rose.
“Calc’late we’ll be startin’ for the op’ry-house, Dolf.”
On other years this had been a sort of triumphal procession. Zaanan had marched to the opera-house surrounded by his friends. Now he looked quizzically at Dolf.
“Seems like we was sort of scarce this mornin’, Dolf, eh?”
They started, a pitiful procession. As they made their progress there were eyes that turned away with a feeling of shame; other eyes stared gleefully. Here was ocular evidence that Zaanan Frame was beaten; that they, the sovereign voters of Diversity, had been able thus easily to reach out and pluck him down.
When Zaanan arrived the opera-house was full. Zaanan, who had for years been given a conspicuous place of honor, found a seat with difficulty. He sank listlessly into his chair, slid forward with extended legs, and let the brush of his beard rest on the bosom of his shirt. He did not look about him.