This takes away the last argument of the Plutocrats who seek to connect Trueman with the act of Proscription.

And Nevins?  What of him?

He has not kept his pledge to the committee by dying with the Transgressor who was assigned to him.  His pledge to God, to follow the committee the day after the atonement, has not been kept.

When October fourteenth dawned, the news of the uprising of the people of Wilkes-Barre and of the part played by Trueman and Ethel, were read by Nevins from the cable dispatches at Calais.

A fear arose in his heart that the plan for the election of Trueman might fail.  He delayed ending his life and hastened to New York.  Upon his arrival he went as a lodger to a room in a lofty Bowery hotel.  From this watch-tower he reviewed the political field.  “I shall redeem my pledge to-morrow,” he said to himself each day.

The night would find him irresolute, not for his fear of death, but for the dread that some unexpected occurrence might arise to thwart the people in their effort to carry the election by the peaceable use of the ballot.

On the flight before the election Nevins hastens to Chicago.  In the crowd at the Independence Headquarters he mingles unobserved.  “What news have you from California?” he asks of one of the press committee.  This is thought to be the pivotal State.  At least this is the claim made by the Plutocrats.

“The indications are that the State will go against us.”

“And why so?”

“Because we have not been able to send speakers there, and the Plutocrats wrecked the train which was conveying the biograph pictures.  You know the Press of the slope, with but few exceptions, are owned by the Magnates and suppress every bit of news that would be detrimental to them.  They have distorted the acts of the Committee of Forty.  Out in California the great mass of the people look upon the Independents as a party of Anarchists.”

“Trueman can be elected without California, can he not?”

“Elected!  Why, he will carry forty States.”

“You really believe it?” asks Nevins, earnestly.

“I would wager my life on it,” is the instant reply.

Nevins hurries from the headquarters and goes to his room.  He writes a letter to Trueman, setting forth his hopes that the interests of the people will ever remain Trueman’s actuating principle.  With absolute fidelity he tells of the struggle he has undergone since the day he sent Golding to his death, and his reason for procrastinating in ending his life.

When the letter is finished Nevins reads it with evident satisfaction.

“Now I will go to the committee,” is his resolve.

A pistol lies on the table.  He picks up the weapon.  There is no hesitancy in his manner.  Death has been a matter which he has contemplated for months, and it holds no terror for him.

“If I have sinned against Thee, O, God,” he murmurs, “death would be too mild a punishment for me.  I would deserve to be everlastingly damned, to live on this earth and bear the denunciation of my fellowmen.