On the way he met Luke Tarboe.
"There's trouble down at the mill," Tarboe said.

"A fellow called Roudin has been spreading a story that you're married and repudiate your wife.
It'd be good to fight it now before it gets going.

There's no truth in it, of course," he added with an opposite look in his eye, for he remembered the letter Carnac received one day in the office and his own conclusion then.
"It's a lie, and I'll go and see Roudin at once....

You've been a good friend to me in the fight, Tarboe, and I'd like a talk when it's all over." "That'll be easy enough, Grier.

Don't make any mistake-this is a big thing you're doing; and if a Protestant Britisher can beat a Catholic Frenchman in his own habitant seat, it's the clinching of Confederation.
We'll talk it over when you've won." "You think I'm going to win ?" asked Carnac with thumping heart, for the stark uncertainty seemed to overpower him, though he smiled.
"If the lie doesn't get going too hard, I'm sure you'll pull it off.
There's my hand on it.