“And you?” I asked; and beneath my smile was the seriousness of the anxiety of love.

“Not I,” he laughed back.  “I may be executed, or assassinated, but I shall never be crucified.  I am planted too solidly and stolidly upon the earth.”

“But why should you bring about the crucifixion of the Bishop?” I asked.  “You will not deny that you are the cause of it.”

“Why should I leave one comfortable soul in comfort when there are millions in travail and misery?” he demanded back.

“Then why did you advise father to accept the vacation?”

“Because I am not a pure, exalted soul,” was the answer.  “Because I am solid and stolid and selfish.  Because I love you and, like Ruth of old, thy people are my people.  As for the Bishop, he has no daughter.  Besides, no matter how small the good, nevertheless his little inadequate wail will be productive of some good in the revolution, and every little bit counts.”

I could not agree with Ernest.  I knew well the noble nature of Bishop Morehouse, and I could not conceive that his voice raised for righteousness would be no more than a little inadequate wail.  But I did not yet have the harsh facts of life at my fingers’ ends as Ernest had.  He saw clearly the futility of the Bishop’s great soul, as coming events were soon to show as clearly to me.

It was shortly after this day that Ernest told me, as a good story, the offer he had received from the government, namely, an appointment as United States Commissioner of Labor.  I was overjoyed.  The salary was comparatively large, and would make safe our marriage.  And then it surely was congenial work for Ernest, and, furthermore, my jealous pride in him made me hail the proffered appointment as a recognition of his abilities.

Then I noticed the twinkle in his eyes.  He was laughing at me.

“You are not going to . . . to decline?” I quavered.

“It is a bribe,” he said.  “Behind it is the fine hand of Wickson, and behind him the hands of greater men than he.  It is an old trick, old as the class struggle is old—­stealing the captains from the army of labor.  Poor betrayed labor!  If you but knew how many of its leaders have been bought out in similar ways in the past.  It is cheaper, so much cheaper, to buy a general than to fight him and his whole army.  There was—­but I’ll not call any names.  I’m bitter enough over it as it is.  Dear heart, I am a captain of labor.  I could not sell out.  If for no other reason, the memory of my poor old father and the way he was worked to death would prevent.”

The tears were in his eyes, this great, strong hero of mine.  He never could forgive the way his father had been malformed—­the sordid lies and the petty thefts he had been compelled to, in order to put food in his children’s mouths.