Before he reached home he was trying to forget himself and to think entirely of her, for he saw how exhausted she was. He put her straight into his hammock, and it was there that she ate her dinner and stayed till it was time to go. She felt a good deal better by the time he landed her near the railway wharf.
IV
The News office all in darkness seemed a strange place to Valerie as she passed it. It had been lit at night for so long. But its part in this drama was played. Aside from the fussing of a special night train that had recently come in, there was no sign of life about this end of the town. It was from the centre that the sounds of an excited, waiting crowd drifted along.
The election results were to be shown on a screen outside the second floor of Roger’s store, which had the great advantage, placed as it was on the corner of Queen and River Streets, of facing the two main ways, of being near the post-office, and of being only one block away from the registrar’s office to which the official results all went. Several of the rooms on the second floor had been cleared out to accommodate Roger’s committee and supporters. It was about this building, and gazing feverishly at the screen for the first significant figures, that the largest crowd Dargaville had ever seen clustered good-humouredly.
As she walked on towards it Valerie heard those mild preliminary cheers accorded to the Royal Family and popular statesmen, whose pictures lantern men show before the real business of the evening begins. When she heard a louder and more rousing one she wondered if she had missed the first big announcement, but she saw it was the cheerful face of Mr. Massey that had stimulated the
