When they arrived at the address given them, they found a big apartment block, with stores underneath. There was no one in the vestibule as they entered, but a man stood waiting at the elevator—apparently the functionary who had charge of the lift.

"Does Newton Fitzgerald live here?" asked Gertrude.

The man motioned to the elevator and the two young women entered and were quickly borne to the top floor.

"This way," said the man, leading the way down a narrow corridor, and pressing an electric button at the last door on the right.

It was opened by a neatly dressed Irish woman, who led the way into a comfortably furnished living-room.

"Be seated," she said. "I'll be back in a while." She spoke with a brogue, and they did not notice the peculiar expression. For some moments they remained quietly waiting; but no one came.

"He must be pretty sick, the place is so quiet," said Mary Snow, at last.

"Probably," assented Gertrude. "But I suppose they'll call us when they are ready."

Fifteen minutes, thirty, forty-five—an hour went by, and still no one came. The place was oppressively still. The electric lights burned brightly; a breeze came in from an open window; the street sounds below floated up to them, insistent and garish. But no rustle of garments, no hushed voices, no slightest motion in the rooms beyond came through the door.

"This is strange," said Gertrude at last. "Newton must be very ill—or something." She arose. "I wonder if we'd better investigate. I hate to intrude, but we ought to be getting back, I didn't tell anybody at home where I was going."

"Nor I—I didn't tell anybody," said Mary. "I thought we should be back long ago. Yes, let us find someone."

They went on through the open door into a bedroom. Out of this opened a small dining room, and beyond that a little kitchen. There was a tiny bathroom, and lights were burning in all the rooms. But there was no sign of the sick man.

They looked at one another, puzzled and anxious.

"They seem to have gone out," said Mary. "Here is another bedroom. Perhaps Fitzgerald is here."

But the bed, all clean and white, had not been disturbed.

Simultaneously, they turned and went back to the door by which they had entered the flat. It was locked.

"We've been trapped," said Gertrude in a low voice. "Let's look through the place."

They began another search, opening closet doors and looking into wardrobes and cupboards and under the furniture. They went to the kitchen and tried the door into the back passage; but that, too, was locked. There was nobody else in the flat; there was no possible way of getting out.

"The windows," said Gertrude. "There should be fire escapes."

But there were not. They could not raise the windows from the bottom, either, although they could lower them slightly from the top for air. They climbed up and peeped over, only to discover that they were seven stories from the ground, and looked only into a light-well. The flat across from them was unoccupied.

They looked at their watches. It was ten o'clock—even then the churches were chiming out the hour.

"Let us look for a note, or some intimation of what to expect," said Mary. "I wonder if they are going to keep us here all night."

"It's a trick," said Gertrude. "There's no knowing how long we may stay—nor what will happen to us. I'm glad I thought of this before I started out alone tonight." And she produced a small revolver from her coat pocket.

"Mercy!" cried Mary, "do you carry that? Would you know how to use it?"

"I carried it when father and I walked through the Pyrenees a few years ago," answered Gertrude. "I used it once—to good advantage—and I could again, if I had to," she added. "Now, let us see what the gods—or the other thing—have provided."

Another search showed them that their flat was well-provisioned, well-furnished, heated and lighted. There were a few books and magazines, a piano, a writing desk, even a pack of playing cards.

"We may have to resort to solitaire yet," laughed Mary. "Though nothing short of imprisonment could induce me to fool away my time with the silly game."

"Well, they have provided for an indefinite stay, I fear," said Gertrude. "Somehow, I have a feeling that we are not going to get out easily. We must think up some way of letting our friends know we are here."

But their jailers had looked out for that. They could hang towels from their upper windows, but to what end, since these could not be seen?

There was no stationery in the desk, but Mary had a pocket diary in her chatelaine bag. "We will write a note and shove it through the crack under the door," they said—and did, repeatedly, the ensuing week—but no answer came.

"I should think somebody would question the elevator boy," said Mary. "Or, that, when he hears we are gone, he will remember bringing us here."

"That was not the regular boy—depend upon it," answered Gertrude. "It was one of the conspirators, if there was a conspiracy, and he will not tell. It was Orlando Vickery who was behind this."

"Shall we go to bed tonight?" asked Mary.

"No, indeed," said Gertrude. "We couldn't possibly sleep. And besides—something might happen."

But nothing did happen. The slow night wore away and morning came. When the whistles below were calling people to their work, the two young women got up from their couch and easy-chair, and went to the windows again; but they could see nothing but the blank wall of a light-well. They were trapped and helpless.

"Well, we may as well be philosophical while we can," said Mary. "There are coffee and breakfast things in the pantry. I saw them last night. I'm used to getting my own light breakfast. Let's eat."

They prepared and ate their simple meal and went back, to wonder and speculate and devise new ways of getting some message to the outside world; but nothing came of it. They could do nothing more than scribble notes on pages torn from the diary and throw them from the tops of the windows into the light-well, where they fell harmlessly into the rubbish heap that gathered unnoticed in the corners. The day wore monotonously along and was succeeded by another and another. Then a note was found shoved under the front door in the early dawn.

"Open the little door to the dumbwaiter in the pantry and find supplies."

They obeyed, and found a basket of fruit, cream, vegetables and meat. They wrote an appealing note and placed in the basket and tried to send it down; but they could not manipulate the dumbwaiter. They left the little door open, to know when the basket descended, but it did not go down until some time during the following night. The only reply to their note—if it was a reply—was a second typewritten note, that came under the door late the fourth evening.

"You can be let out any time that Miss Van Deusen will send down her signed and witnessed resignation from the office of mayor. Push it through the crack and the door will be opened for you."

When they read it, Gertrude's face flushed hotly. "So they think to force me out, do they?"

"Don't you resign, Miss Van Deusen," said Mary. "We'll stay here and starve, first. Somebody will find us—some time."

"I've not the slightest intention of resigning," replied the other. "And how often have I asked you to call me Gertrude? We aren't mayor and secretary now—or I'd command you to call me by my given name. We are just two prisoners."

"Then I'll do as you say—if I don't forget—Gertrude," answered Mary.

"I wonder what they are doing down below," said Mary later in the day.

"How many times do you think we've said that this week?" laughed Gertrude. "We've heard the usual street sounds, and an unusual amount of bell-ringing—which may or may not have been on our account."

"At least, we haven't heard them toll the bells for us!" interrupted Mary. "That's something."

"But not a paper, not a line, not a breath from the outside world has reached up—except the basket of provisions," exclaimed Gertrude, ruefully.

"And the demand for your resignation," interrupted Mary again. "Honestly, now, Gertrude, don't you wish at the bottom of your heart, that you had never gone into politics? That you'd let the office of mayor go begging last fall?"

Gertrude's face was a study. For an instant her friend thought she was about to confess that she had made a mistake. Then the old spirit flared up. Gertrude held her head high.

"I would never own it if I did," she said. "When the next election comes around, however—"

She did not finish her remark, but picked up a book and fell to reading.

"This 'Fated to Conquer' isn't a bad story, Mary," she said after a while. "When I read such a book—of love and romance and all that—I wish I were, or had been, of the marrying kind of women. As it is—I'm going to say it in confidence, Mary—I believe, when we get out of this, I'll marry Bailey."

She did not notice her friend's peculiar expression, but talked idly on. "You know he has wanted to marry me several times in the past. To be sure, he hasn't proposed for a couple of years, but he will. A man will always propose to the woman he loves if she gives him half a chance."

"Why didn't you marry him?" asked Mary in an expressionless voice.

"O, I never loved him, or thought I didn't," answered Gertrude. "I didn't fully believe in his love for me, either; that is, he did not love me as I wanted to be loved. We are comrades from childhood, and sort of cousins. He's been as near a brother to me as he could and I've been fond of him in that kind of way."

"Then you don't love him—not really?" asked Mary; and she could not entirely suppress a joyous note in her voice.

"Well, yes," blandly replied Gertrude. "I love Bailey in a way. Not the passionate kind of love one reads of in novels—like this, for instance;" she indicated the book she had been reading. "The heroine goes through all sorts of tribulations for love's sake, and the hero finally renounces everything for her sake; but that is only in books. People don't love in that violent fashion. Mutual esteem and confidence are what I see between the happiest married couples of my acquaintance. Bailey is thoroughly reliable, helpful and honorable. I am tired of standing up to the world alone. It must be a comfort to have a good husband to take care of you."

"It must indeed," replied Mary, inscrutably.



CHAPTER XXI

Word From the Missing

"There seems to be something queer about the way the search goes on," said Bailey to Allingham. "They don't pull together, some way."

"I think it's because there is no real, efficient head to the committee," returned Allingham. "Blatchley's afraid of running counter to Mann; or if not exactly that, he waits for our acting mayor to take the initiative."

"Which he will never do," retorted Bailey. "It isn't in him—and besides—"

"I know what you mean," replied Allingham. "You don't have to put it in words. But something more definite and aggressive has got to be done than is doing now."

"Right you are," said Armstrong. "The question is—what?"

"The people are getting clamorous, not to say critical," said Allingham, "Why not call another mass-meeting and put it right to them to demand or institute a better organized search for the missing mayor?"

"Good idea," said Bailey. "Let's talk it over with Mason and Turner and Jewett, and see if we can't stir Mann up a bit."

The two men had been lunching together at the club, with a little talk afterwards, while they smoked their cigars in the lazy summer atmosphere of the well-kept garden.

"Well, here it is three o'clock," added Bailey; "and I have an appointment at a quarter-past. So long."

"I must be going, too;" and Allingham followed, walking down street as far as his office. Once there, he hung up his hat, changed his coat for a thinner one, and sat down to his desk, whereupon a pile of letters lay unopened. It was a warm day, and Allingham took his own time to read his correspondence, and jot down on the back of the letters the reply which he wished his secretary to write when she arrived in the morning. Then he rested his head in his hands and his elbows on the desk for a few moments' quiet thought before closing his office for the day. It was a habit he had, when alone, and today the baffling situation with regard to the woman-mayor was making him more worried than ever.

"There's some devilish chicanery going on in high quarters," he told himself, "or this search would be conducted differently. The thing for us to do is to find out just what O. H. M., Esquire, is up to in his little mind. Hullo, what's this?"

A slip of paper had been tossed by the vagrant wind, through the open window onto his desk and lay there, open, under his eyes. Ordinarily, he would have swept the crumpled thing into his waste basket. But the mysterious power which guides us when we do the unexpected thing, stayed his hands, and the half-obliterated note arrested his attention.

confined in top block. Safe but come to the corner Streets and liberate Gertrude Mary S

"Good Heavens!" cried Allingham. "They are somewhere in the neighborhood—or were, when this was written. No date, nothing to show where they were or when. Just like a woman. Well, well, here's something to work on at last, thank Heaven." He turned the piece of paper over and over, but there was nothing more to be seen, and he held it up to the light in vain, when he tried to make out what the penciled words had been which had completed the sentence.

"Let's see. This is Thursday. What day was it, when it rained so? Tuesday? No. Sunday? Then this was written before that and has laid out where it was washed by the rain. Then it has dried in the sun and the wind caught it up and brought it here. Blessed wind!"

He walked over to the window and looked down into the street. He had two rooms, one of them a small, back room, opening into a court; but this piece of paper had floated in from the street under his very eyes. He looked across at the big block opposite. She might be right there. A big department store occupied the lower floors—but the upper stories seemed to be tenements for living purposes. What if she should be there, now—at this very moment? Or here, under the same roof with himself?

The thought electrified him and he went out, locking his door behind him. There was an elevator. "Top," the note had said. He took the lift and went to the topmost floor, stealing down the corridors on a voyage of discovery, and feeling like a thief, or a detective. But the rooms were all occupied by tailors or the like, and every door stood hospitably open. Surely he could not reasonably disturb these people and search their premises without a warrant.

He turned and went down again, with the happy inspiration to telephone to the chief of police and to Bailey Armstrong.

"If you could come right here," he said to the former, "I can not only give you some important information, but give you an idea of this locality which you may not possess. For I have a positive clue."

"I'll be with you in fifteen minutes," replied the official, who cared not a rap for the dignity of his position.

To Bailey, Allingham only said: "Come down here at once, I've something definite and important to tell you and to show you. But not a word over the telephone."

In five minutes Bailey came in, breathless. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Read this," and Allingham put the scrap of paper in his hands and related the story of its anchorage on his desk after days of weary wandering. Before the tale was fairly unfolded, the chief of police appeared and it had to be told all over again.

"Now," said Allingham, when he had finished, "what is the first and quickest thing to be done?"

"Organize," answered the chief. "Get a few men together and go through this section of the town thoroughly. Strange we haven't done more right here. We've gone on the theory that they were in the suburbs or in some other town."

"And probably they have been right under our noses, all the time," said Bailey.

"Or over them," returned the chief. "You say you went upstairs."

"Yes. They can't be here," replied Allingham. "Not on the top floor. But there are tenements over opposite."

"We'll take 'em all in, if necessary," said the chief. "What do you say to my coming up here tonight and meeting you two. I'll have a dozen plain-clothes men happen around, and we'll do a little looking around here quietly, between nine and twelve."

"Great," said Armstrong.

"I'll have the office open at eight-thirty," said Allingham.

The chief came alone, however, at a quarter of nine, greeting Bailey and Allingham confidently.

"Where are your men?" asked Allingham, fearful lest the chief's courage had given out.

"You didn't think I'd arouse the suspicion of the whole neighborhood by bringing a whole posse up here with me?" retorted the official. "They're scattered around the square, nosing about quietly. If they can pick up anything it mightn't come amiss. We'd all better saunter around a little, first. We'll go over to Erlich's drug-store and have a soda. A couple of my men will fall in with us there. Later we'll go into the saloon across the way. Before we get out, they'll all be with us, or outside the building—see?"

And they were; but previous to this, several of the men had made errands into the various blocks in that section, but had added no bits of information to their scanty stock. Several quiet families were surprised by the appearance at their doors of strange men on strange errands, but not a clue could be obtained that fastened suspicion on anyone. It seemed pretty clear that there were no kidnaped women in the block opposite, nor in the row of blocks on the side where John Allingham had his office. They went in and out of every block that was not locked upon the street, and invaded every floor, but without avail. Their search lasted until twelve, when the plain-clothes men dropped off quietly and went home.

"Tomorrow we'll investigate the places where we can't get into tonight, and the blocks back of this one. There is an apartment house back of us, isn't there?"

"I don't know," answered Allingham. "I never go over onto Collins Avenue. But—yes, there is a block or two there. We didn't get around there tonight?"

"Tut-tut, one thing at a time," answered the chief. "The note came in at your front window, you said. It wouldn't have been likely to fly over from a street behind you—would it?"

"I'm not so sure of that!" muttered Bailey; and when the chief had gone, he added: "I'm going to sneak around into Collins Avenue before I go home, and sort of get the lay of the land. Come, too?"

"I'll join you in a minute," answered Allingham. "I'm not sure I closed the windows to my back office. Wait for me."

"No; I'll stroll round there and be taking a look," answered Bailey. "You can meet me at a little drug-store there is around the corner." He strolled away and his friend went upstairs to his office. He opened the door with his latch-key, as quietly as possible, meaning just to take a look, and make things secure for the night, but—

There, under the bright electric light, stood—Gertrude Van Deusen.



CHAPTER XXII

A Daring Escape

"Gertrude!" he cried, springing forward; and neither of them realized that he was holding both her hands in his strong, eager clasp.

"Yes," she answered. "It is I."

"But what—where—where have you been?" stammered Allingham. "How did you get here?"

"Through your back window," said Gertrude, "to answer the last question first. The other needs a longer answer; but if you'll come with me I can show you the place and get poor Mary out—for she is 'ill and in prison.' But you'd better get help, for the place where we've been confined is watched, I should say."

"I'll get Bailey. Please sit down and wait quietly." And Allingham led her to his most comfortable chair. "I'll be back in two minutes." And he went out, clicking the latch together after him.

"A prisoner again," said Gertrude to herself. "But this time a safe one, thank God."

It was hardly sixty seconds before Allingham was around the corner and entering the drug-store where Bailey had promised to be. He was there, waiting.

"O, Bailey, she is safe. She is found. She is in my office," said Allingham, in a low, rapid tone.

"Mary? Thank God!—where?" said Bailey.

"Mary?—no, Gertrude—Miss Van Deusen, I mean," he stammered, wonderingly. "Mary Snow is still incarcerated somewhere about here. Come quick. I'll telephone for the chief again. He cannot have got to bed yet."

By this time they were upstairs and at Allingham's door, for they had not done their talking standing still. Allingham produced his key. "We must get them both home tonight," he said, and opened the door.

"O, Bailey!" cried Gertrude, coming forward impulsively. "I'm so glad you've come."

And then Bailey answered, "O, Gertie," and throwing his arms around her, kissed her affectionately on the brow. "O, Gertie, where have you been? And where is Mary?"

"And how did you get here?" Allingham wanted to ask this question, but the sight of that kiss had seemed to paralyze him. It was Bailey, then, who had won her love—Bailey, on whom life showered every blessing, whom all women loved, whom everybody admired. And he—what a fool he was!

So he only went to the telephone and called up the private residence of the chief of police.

"Got in? I was afraid you'd gone to bed," he said. "Well, Miss Van Deusen is in this office—what? Yes—I say, Miss Van Deusen is here. Yes, in my office. How? I don't know myself yet. But we must get Miss Snow at once. Come up quick. Can you get your men? Yes, all right. We'll wait for you. Good-by."

"Hurry up, Jack," said Bailey. "Gertie's story's waiting for you. Now, old girl, go ahead."

"Nice, respectful way to address your mayor," laughed Gertrude, to whom the world had suddenly become a broader and brighter place than ever. "Well, then here goes."

She began at the beginning of her story and told how she and Mary Snow had set out for Newton Fitzgerald's sick bed; how they had been trapped, and how the days had dragged in the flat.

"We wrote a score of notes on leaves torn from Mary's diary," she went on, "and tucked them out of the top of the window and under the bottom of the door. But nothing ever came of them."

Allingham handed her the slip of washed-out paper that still lay on his desk.

"That floated in here this afternoon," he said. "It's the first clue we've had."

"We've been searching this neighborhood tonight," added Bailey. "We'd have got you tomorrow, sure."

"Then I wish I'd waited," said Gertrude. "Look at my hands." She held them, palms out. They were all red and swollen. Allingham had an insane desire to snatch and kiss them, but Bailey regarded them coolly enough.

"Rough on you, Gert. How did that happen?" he asked.

"Well, after trying every means we could think of to get some word to the outside world, we decided to make our escape somehow. We tore up the sheets and blankets and twisted them into a strong cable. This we fastened securely to the kitchen pipes, and with our nail-files we managed to saw away the copper netting that had been nailed across the window frames, and then to pry up the lower sash. We had planned to come down, both of us, on this, last night; but Mary was taken ill yesterday, and I wouldn't come without her. Today she seemed worse instead of better, and I came down for help."

"You came down that rope—yourself?" said Allingham.

"Yes—like any convict, escaping from state's prison," answered Gertrude. "Of course I had no idea where I should land, nor into what hands I might fall. I was sure we were watched, but believed only from the front door—"

"Go on," said Bailey, impatiently. "Did you leave Mary alone in that flat?"

"Of course," answered Gertrude. "What else was there to do? But instead of landing in the enemy's camp, I found myself in the hands of a good Samaritan." She smiled at Allingham, and his heart sang foolishly. "When my feet struck bottom I found myself where I expected to be—at the bottom of the light-well. I looked around me for some way of escape, and saw an open window. I came through it—and here I am."

"Why don't that man come along?" said Bailey, impatiently—"with Mary sick up there and alone—Oh, here he is;" and the chief of police entered, eager to seize Miss Van Deusen's hand and hear her story of the kidnaping and escape.

"Half a dozen men are waiting outside," he said, when she had told him the main facts. "There is no need of wasting further time. Come."

They all filed out, Gertrude leading the way with Bailey, who assumed the care of her with such an air of possession that Allingham's heart sank again. It was but a few moments before they were ascending the stairs of the apartment house—the elevator ceasing to run after one o'clock. Gertrude led the way to the further end of the corridor. As they approached it, the dark figure of a man skulked out of the shadow and leapt through the open window.

"Quick! After him!" cried Bailey. "A man just went through that window."

Two of the policemen ran to the window and onto the fire-escape which led down and out. But before they had reached it, the fleeing figure had gone in at an open window on the fifth floor, and escaped, and before the pursuers had discovered this, the pursued was downstairs, out and on a trolley car, safely out of harm's way.

Upstairs Bailey was impatiently trying to ring the bell, and they were shaking the door, trying to rouse Mary Snow. But she was lying in a dead faint inside, having heard their approach and overtaxed her strength in trying to reach the door.

"Break it," ordered the chief. It was but a moment before the half dozen men had the door down, and they all walked in.

"O, Mary!" cried Gertrude. "She has fainted. Carry her in there," and she pointed to the bedroom. Bailey was beside the prostrate girl in a moment, and already had her in his arms. He followed Gertrude into the adjoining room and laid her on the bed.

"Now, go out," commanded Gertrude, seeing that he still hung over her secretary. "I must be alone with her a few minutes. I'll call you as soon as she is able to see you."

He went reluctantly and joined the others in their examination of the place. In the meantime, Gertrude administered simple restoratives to Mary, and she was able to open her eyes.

"It's all right," cried Gertrude smilingly. "I reached safety and we're going out the moment you're able. So hurry up, please."

"Where's Bailey?" was Mary's only reply.

"Just outside; I'll call him," answered Gertrude, wondering at this reception of her news. But she stepped to the door and motioned to Armstrong, who was hovering outside. He came in and closed the door.

"Mary!" he cried in a voice that Gertrude had never heard.

"Bailey!" Mary answered, reaching out both hands.

Then a great light dawned in Gertrude's mind. She went out softly—but they did not even look to see what had become of her.



Chapter XXIII

The Hearts of the People

There was great excitement in Roma the following morning, when the people read in head-lines that occupied half or more of the first page of the morning paper,

THE MAYOR IS FOUND

Newspaper reporters had reached the Van Deusen residence before the two women did, and they did not leave until the story of their ten days' adventure (wonderfully simple from their point of view) had been told. The presses waited while the facts were properly embellished and each paper vied with the other to get the longest and most readable, if not the most startling story.

It seemed almost inconceivable that two prominent women could have been imprisoned in the center of the town and concealed for ten days—and yet it had been done; and now that they were restored to their friends—and the public—once more, that there should not be the slightest clue to the persons behind the plot.

"It is the most successful trick ever perpetrated," announced the Atlas, "and one no sane man would ever have admitted possible. The mayor has not seen a human being, except Miss Snow, nor heard any other human voice for ten days. No detective has yet found who sent her the message signed by Newton Fitzgerald, nor can they discover who was at the elevator to receive them when they mounted to their place of concealment, the regular incumbent having already proved an alibi. They met in the drug-store, but no one recognized or noticed them. The plot was carefully laid and successfully carried out, By whom, is at present, a mystery."

By nine o'clock the Mayor was at her desk, with Mary Snow in her office. Friends tried to deter her, on the plea of needed rest, but she only laughed at them.

"Rest? What else have I done but rest, for ten days past?" she asked.

"Worry, I should hope," answered her cousin Jessica. "I'm sure the rest are nearly worn out with worrying about you."

"I didn't worry—not so very much," said Gertrude. "I felt sure we were confined only to make me resign—or to give them a chance at the mayor's office, to get some nefarious contract through, or to secrete evidence in the street railway case, and I'm in a hurry to get down there and find out just what they have been doing."

"We felt sure our kidnapers wouldn't dare to do us any real harm," added Mary. "They've seen that we had plenty to eat and we have not suffered in any way. As Gertrude says, we've done nothing but rest."

"Well, I suppose you'll have to go then," said Jessica. "But you'll just have to hold a reception all day. Every man, woman and child will be there to shake hands with you and congratulate you."

But the citizens did not wait for them to reach their office. Before Gertrude's carriage appeared in the square in front of the city hall, the citizens had unharnessed the horses and were drawing her, as if she had been some princess royal and they her subjects.

Men that voted against her, men that had denounced her in private and public, joined the procession and helped to give her such a welcome as to bring tears to her eyes and choke her utterance.

When they reached the square, it was full of the surging, shouting populace who crowded about, seizing her hands and demonstrating in every possible way their joy at her return. If any of her captors had been looking on, he could not have doubted whether the town would be friendly to him just then.

They reached the City Hall at last, but even then, the mayor was not allowed to get out.

"Speech, speech," they were crying all about her; and Gertrude stood up, choking back her tears and trying to speak. This was what it meant to reach the popular heart, at last.

"Friends," she said, "I cannot tell you what this welcome means to us. Never again can I feel discouragement or lose faith in the people of Roma. You are showing me that I am as dear to you as you are to me. I cannot say more. Your welcome thrills me to the heart, and it seems to me I can never outlive this moment of joyous welcome. Let us go now—to our homes, our offices, our stores; and while we thank God that he has brought us out from the shadow into the light of day, let us ask Him, all humbly, for help in making our beloved Roma a fairer, a better, a purer city—a city of ideals realized and lofty purposes fulfilled."

She sat down exhausted and the crowd saw that she was near to over-taxing her strength. They began to disperse, but one cried out:

"The little secretary, too. Three cheers for Mary Snow!"

They were given spontaneously, ringing to the echo, and Mary, blushing and tremulous, rose and thanked them. Then the crowd parted to let the two women descend and go up to the hall. Had they been men and the same feeling prevailed, the mayor would have been carried in on broad shoulders, and amid shouts and cheers; but although the thought occurred to the leaders of the good-natured mob, there was something about her that made them remember the old Senator.

"She's not the kind for that," they said, and stood with bared heads while she passed in and out of sight.

"Oh, but it's good to get back here," said Mary, as they found themselves once more in the mayor's rooms. "I shall be glad to buckle down to work again."

But there was little chance for "buckling down" that day. Even as she spoke, Bailey Armstrong was beside Mary Snow with warm greetings and Allingham was exchanging salutations with the Mayor herself. A stream of others were coming in, all the employees about the place, and hundreds of others, who wanted to clasp the hands of the returned prisoners, and assure them of their loyal support.

The women of the city began to arrive about ten o'clock, the "Progressives" arriving at that hour in a body, and everyone of them clasping and kissing the Mayor as, it is safe to say, no incumbent of that office was ever hugged and kissed before—at least, during office hours.

"O, Gertrude," said Mrs. Blake, "we would never have put you in, if we'd known what it would bring you."

"To think we were letting you in for kidnaping and imprisonment," said Mrs. Turner.

"Like a criminal—or step-child," added Mrs. Mason.

"O, Gertie!" cried the fluffy woman known as Bella, "and I brought it on by telling you all that stuff my laundress told me. Rudolph says I did." And she burst into tears.

"Don't cry, Bella," said the mayor, soothingly. "I was finding things out, anyway. It would have been just the same in the end."

"But Rudolph says—" insisted the weeping one, when the push from behind carried her on out into the corridors.

Club-women, patriotic women, stay-at-home women were followed by women from the poorer classes who had waited until their morning's work was done before coming to tell the Mayor how glad they were to have her back. Then noon came, bringing young women from the stores and offices and factories, all eager to add their bit of welcome; and the school children, to shake her hand and go home and tell of this wonderful day, which afterward became a memory for a lifetime. When four o'clock came, Gertrude prepared to go home; to rest and sleep in her own bed, worn out with the welcome of thousands of her people. Mary Snow had already succumbed to the demand on her energies and had gone an hour before.

"It's worth the whole gamut of experience," Gertrude said to herself as she closed her desk, "just to find out what it is to get at the heart of the American people. It's a great experience, and I shall be a better woman for it, all my days."

A step on the bare floor behind her. She looked up.

"I haven't had a chance to tell you in words how very, very glad I am," said Allingham, holding out his hand. "But—you know—"

"Yes," she said, taking it; "I know."

"Excuse me," said a voice, and a burly form pushed in from the outer office; "but I couldn't go home until I came to have one word with you, Miss Van Deusen. You don't—you can't believe I had anything to do with getting you into that scrape?"

"No, Newton, I never believed it for a minute," said the mayor, "not after I realized you were not there, sick and in trouble. I know you too well."

"Thank you," said Fitzgerald. "I'm ready to go on the witness stand for you, any time. More than that, I'll run down the rascals that played you such a d—d trick, if it takes the last cent I've got."



Chapter XXIV

An Honest Confession

At the first possible moment, Gertrude and Mary went carefully through the books and papers in their private desks. The first discovery they made was that all notes and papers pertaining to Vickery and the Boulevard Railway Company were missing, thus destroying every bit of evidence, beyond their spoken word, in that particular case. Other documents were missing also, and the trail of the corrupt politician was over all. She sent for Robert Joyce, the district attorney, and Bailey Armstrong, as city solicitor, and they held counsel together until the lengthening shadows drove them home. But not until they had sent for Otis H. Mann, and put the case strongly to him. That functionary was, however, as smooth and oily as ever, disclaiming all knowledge of everything.

"I assure you, gentlemen," he said, "and you, madam, that only the most perfunctory of routine work has been done in this office while I was acting-mayor. It was our one object to let things slide along as easily as possible until the real mayor should return. We desired no radical changes, and on the other hand, as few breaks in the regular routine of city affairs as possible. I desired, above all, to be a faithful servant to the people—to—in short, ah—"

"How about those contracts you negotiated with Watts?" broke in Joyce.

"And McAlister's new job—under the name of Peter Grayson?" added Bailey.

Mann's face was a shade more purple for an instant, but he went on, unctuously.

"The man who suddenly becomes the head of a city has a great responsibility—especially if he has been, in a sense, shut out from the confidence of its mayor up to the time of his incumbency. He cannot expect to please everyone. He will be called 'demagogue' by the opposite party; his motives will be misconstrued; his honesty brought in question, his principles—"

"O, spare us," interrupted Bailey. "While you were the head of this office, some important testimony has disappeared; private papers belonging to the mayor and her secretary were taken away, and several other questionable things were done. We called you here now, to explain these things; and if you cannot produce them, to say why. The least thing a man in your position can do is to institute a hearty search for the missing papers, and to act in accord with us in leaving no stone unturned to find them."

"Gentlemen," said the chairman of the board of aldermen, rising and laying his hand impressively across his heart, "I will swear to you that the mayor's desk and her secretary's were turned over to her exactly as I found them. If anything has been taken from them, the robbery occurred either before I came or after I went out."

"And you are willing to pledge yourself to aid in discovering the thief, whoever and wherever he may be?" said Bailey, regarding Mann narrowly.

"On my word of honor," replied the chairman; and he could not help it if his words and tone sounded rather bombastic. "But, I am sorry, my dear lady—but I have a very important engagement at this hour—a personal matter, very dear to my heart, which compels me to ask you to excuse me now. I shall be glad to call upon you tomorrow morning, at any hour you may name."

"Can you make it nine o'clock," asked Gertrude—"or even earlier?"

"Yes, we must get definitely to work tomorrow morning," added Joyce.

"Certainly, nine—or half past eight, if you choose," said Mann. "In the meantime I will try to recall the minutest particulars of my connection with this office. I am sure, my dear lady, you do not need to be assured of my loyalty to you—nor to my native city. And now—I bid you good-day." He bowed impressively and was gone.

"All the same, I don't like the cut of his jib," murmured Bailey.

"Oh, he's too much of a trimmer to go back on us now," said Joyce. "Public sentiment is all on our side now, and election day's coming."

Gertrude smiled. "I can't imagine why anybody should trim his sails to get an office," she said.

"Well, see what a dangerous thing it is to cultivate a taste for politics," retorted Bailey. "There's no knowledge where it may lead you."

"Oh, Miss Van Deusen will have a walkover when her turn for election comes again."

Gertrude remembered this remark as she sat in her library that evening, alone for the first time since she had set forth to call on Newton Fitzgerald.

"Having set my hand to the plough," (her favorite expression) "I suppose I must not look back," she soliloquized, "until the end of the furrow is reached. But I may look forward, and—if I live through the next few months, I wonder if anything or anybody can persuade me to be a candidate the second time. I don't think so now. But how much more I know than I did last year!—only, of course, I cannot own it to any living soul. John Allingham ought to have beaten me. I wonder if he will run next year?" But in her heart she knew very well he would not oppose her again. "He would make an ideal mayor. Upright, honorable, fearless—and afraid of nothing but doing wrong. Ah, well—should it always take a man to deal with men—or shouldn't it? I don't know."

The maid entered.

"A man wishes to see you, Miss Van Deusen," said she. "He says he must talk to you personally. His name is Fitzgerald. But if you're too tired, Miss Van Deusen, I'll make him wait. If you'll excuse my saying so—you are too worn-down. These people ask too much of you."

"Show him right in here, Lizzie," answered Gertrude. "And don't worry about me. I'm all right, now I am home."

A moment later Fitzgerald entered and stood, hat in hand.

"Excuse me, Miss Van Deusen," he began apologetically. "I've got something to confess—and I can't wait until morning—it'll be too late then."

"Go on," said Gertrude kindly. "Just trouble to shut that door into the hall, please, and then come over here by me."

The man did as he was told, and drew a chair near enough to her to be heard in low tones.

"Miss Van Deusen," he began; "it's just as I told you; I didn't know anything about the message they sent you, nor about the trap they set for you. But I have been knowing a good deal, and now—he's running away—and I'll be d——d if I won't tell you!"

"Sh—sh—who's running away?" interrupted Gertrude. "Calm yourself, Newton, and tell me."

"Mann—the dirty whelp, after lining his pockets, and doing you all the harm he dares," he went on. "I've stood for him all I will. I've supported him and his cliques, and given house-room to his workers; and now he's—"

Gertrude saw it was useless to try to calm him, and wisely decided to let him work off his excitement by telling his story in his own way.

"And it's because Otis H. Mann, the people's friend, as he calls himself," explained Fitzgerald, impulsively, "has left town, bag and baggage, and will sail for foreign ports as soon as he strikes New York, that I'm telling."

"Tell me all you know, Newton. I've been wanting a good long talk with you for a long time. Begin at the beginning, please."

"Well, of course you know I'm a democrat. I've always voted with that party, and would have done so last fall, even against you—if it hadn't been for the job they put up on you. Yes—I mean the night before election. They talked it all over in a little room back of my saloon. The boss was there himself that night—"

"You mean Burke?" interrupted Gertrude.

"No—Mann. Burke's under his orders every time. Whatever Burke done, it was Mann behind him; and when Burke got a rake-off of a thousand, Mann got two. As I'm tellin' you, they arranged the whole affair in my rooms. There was Mann and Burke, and McAdoo, and one or two others, and myself. I ain't claiming to be any better than the rest. I was there—not that I was ag'in you, but because it was my room, and my liquor, and I'd always been in their confabs. I didn't approve of them electric cabs and seizing you by main force, as it were, and rushing you out into the country; but Mann and Burke were determined to have it—and when I saw they were bound to do it, anyhow, I just had to agree; and to see that nothing happened to you, I went along, too. If they'd tried any funny business with you, I'd—well, I took my irons along."

"Newton!" cried Gertrude. "Were you there? You!"

"Yes," replied the man, grimly. "I was your chauffeur. I wouldn't trust you to anyone else. I ain't forgot all you and your father done for me when I was a kid."

"Newton, you've a queer sense of gratitude," she laughed, for the situation seemed not without humor. "You ran away with me to protect me."

"That's about the size of it. I didn't know what the others might do; I did know I should bring you in safely."

"Where did you get that cab?" she asked him.

"It was one I ran all last summer out to my summer place at Itosco. It's stored there now. The other we got at Bonborough from a friend of Mann's. His chauffeur ran that. The third man was McAdoo."

"Then it was you who brought me—and Mr. Allingham—home?"

"Yes'm. And it was Mann's friend's machine that was wrecked; and they had hard work to get the remains of it dragged off and hidden before morning; but Mann is a slick one. As soon as we got in we reported to him and he had his men out there with plenty to help. But it's more about Mann I want to tell you. It ain't Vickery, you want to haul into court. It's Mann. He's made more'n a hundred thousand off'n the city. He's pulled off already over thirty thousand on that Boulevard Railway scheme. Vickery's only a tool. If you'd bitten his bait and taken what they offered you, they had it planned that Mann was to be general manager. That railway would have swallowed up all the others; and then he was to be president. He means to be a millionaire yet. He will be, if you don't get him—and quick."

"Wait; let's call Bailey." She rang up on the telephone. "But you knew nothing about the trap they caught Miss Snow and me in?"

"No." He waited until she called up Bailey Armstrong, and requested him to come to the house at once.

"No," he went on. "I swear it. They knew I hadn't much sympathy for their plots against you and got shy of letting me in on them. But there's a barkeep in my saloon—or was—who kept them posted. When you telephoned me that day, he put 'em wise right off, quick. Mann was the one who planned your imprisonment. He thought out all the details—I've only just found this out—and since his talk with you this afternoon, he thought you were getting wise, too. So he went right out, got his bag (which has been packed for some time) and took the night train East. He owes me a big bill—and more promises than he can ever pay. I've been getting sick of this kind of thing for weeks; now that he's proved the biggest kind of a coward, I've come straight to you. And I'm glad I did."

"Would you be willing to go into court and swear to all this?" asked Gertrude. "For that is what it will come to, Newton."

"All this and more," he answered. "If you can catch the dirty whelp before he sails for foreign parts, I'll do my part to put him where he belongs. I'm sick of living the life of a dirty dog. I want to be a clean man. I want to be a respectable citizen for the sake of my boy and girl, Miss Van Deusen; and their mother thinks the world of you—and so do I, when you come to that."

"I am sure of that," answered Gertrude, smiling again at the thought that it was his loyalty which made of him her chauffeur on that memorable ride. "I shall depend on you now."

Thus it happened that Bailey Armstrong, who would trust no man to go alone, took the midnight train for the East, accompanied by the sheriff of Roma; and that, in due course of time, they returned to Roma, "bringing their sheaves with them" in the form of Otis H. Mann, Esq.



CHAPTER XXV

The Old, Old Story

The trial which followed was perhaps the most exciting event in the history of Roma. The indictment of Mann involved that of eight others, all more or less prominent in city politics; and when the facts became known with regards to Mann's connection with all the events narrated by Fitzgerald, the citizens were unanimous in demanding his punishment.

Although the documental evidence in the city hall had all been destroyed or secreted, there were plenty of witnesses ready to testify to what they knew, as soon as they felt safe in doing so; and although the stenographer's notes and Mary Snow's record of what took place while she was secreted in the closet during Vickery's proposals of graft to the mayor were not to be found, Mary's testimony was admitted. Gertrude Van Deusen and Newton Fitzgerald were the chief witnesses, however, and there were few of Mann's minions brave enough to stand by him in this emergency. The trial was not long, the jury was out fifteen minutes and the verdict was "guilty."

When the judge pronounced the penalty, "Ten years in state's prison and the restitution of every dollar you have taken from or through the city," Mann collapsed from the red-faced, pompous official, into the pitiable wretch; and there were few to say a good word for him when court adjourned and the people gathered in knots to talk over the trial. The judge's sentence for the rest of the grafters—from one to ten years' imprisonment and complete restitution—met with hearty approval; and from that day municipal grafting suddenly declined in Roma, and honest politics began to be recognized.

Vickery was heard from soon after in Japan, but the chief offenders having been convicted, there was no further interest in bringing him—an outsider and a tool—to justice. The Boulevard Railway scheme was never heard of more.

As soon as the trial was fairly over and the delinquents safely lodged in jail, the Mayor called a meeting of the remaining councilmen. There were six vacancies—that number of Roma's aldermen being behind the bars of justice; and their places had to be filled.

"How shall this be done?" she asked of them, after calling the meeting to order and stating its object. "The city charter provides for the filling of vacancies by the mayor; but the fathers who framed this charter could never have dreamed of this wholesale demand. I place it before you. Shall we select the best men for the places ourselves—for I should not dream of appointing any without suggestions from you—or shall we call a special election, and let these aldermen be chosen by the people for the unexpired term?"

There were good arguments on both sides, and every man spoke his mind—for once, without fear or favor. At last Geoffrey Mason made the decisive speech:

"We have come to the crisis of our municipal history. We have rid our local government of some of the worst demagogues with which any city ever was cursed; consequently, it is most important that we fill their places with men of wide views, unusual intelligence and absolute fearlessness. We are not sure of what the voters may do if an election be called just now; but we are reasonably sure that we can pick out six men who will help make our system of government a model of its kind instead of a reproach and a by-word. Let us make our own selections—or, rather, help our mayor to make hers—and show this town what can be done with an honest and sane council, every man of whom has at heart the framing of a model municipality and the development of an ideal city. To this end, I move that the mayor, assisted by the entire council, shall fill the vacancies in our board."

This motion was carried without further debate, and some of the best and most public-spirited men in Roma were put into the vacant places. At last Gertrude had a city council which was in full sympathy with her, and ready to further every good project she had under consideration.

At the first meeting of the completed council, they voted to adopt the new ordinance which was to provide for open bids on all contracts, to be signed by the mayor in the presence of his council; and also to pass others vital to the best interests of the city. It would be impossible, when they should have finished remodeling their city charter, for City Hall to be again the temple of the money-changers.

"We are going to experience a spasm of virtue now that will astonish the world," said Armstrong, as he sat at lunch with Allingham at the Union Club next day. "Let's hope it will swing the whole length of the pendulum from the point where it started last January. You must confess, the experiment of putting in a woman for mayor has been rather a successful one, on the whole."

"I do," answered Allingham. "I'll admit it freely. But then, Gertrude Van Deusen is an exceptional woman."

"One of the greatest," said Bailey.

"Shall I offer my congratulations now?" asked Allingham, after a slight pause.

"How did you hear?" said Bailey, quickly. "Who told you?"

"I've seen it all along," answered Allingham. "No one has told me. Yes, she's a fine woman—the noblest I ever saw."

"Mary?—yes," said Bailey. "As fine as Gertrude, every bit."

"What?" gasped the other; "Mary Snow?"

"Why, yes, man," retorted Bailey. "What's the matter with you? Of course it's Mary Snow."

"Not Gertrude—Miss Van Deusen?" said Allingham, in strained tones.

"Well, for one who is so sharp as to 'see it all along,' I must say you're a little off the mark," answered Bailey. "I've been engaged to Mary Snow ever since the night we found them in the flat, but she's determined not to have it announced until her time is up at City Hall. Gertrude?—yes, she's pure gold. I thought once I loved her, but she was wiser than I. Mary is the only woman in the world for me." Then, seeing the look on his friend's face, he exclaimed:

"See here, Jack, what's the matter? I never dreamed it."

"Do you believe, Bailey, I stand any show? I confess I"—Allingham stopped; he could not talk about it, even to Armstrong in this hour of confidence.

"'A woman-mayor? In Roma? I'm afraid it wouldn't do!'" quoted Bailey, teasingly.

"O, quit," answered Allingham. "That was before I knew her—knew anything."

"'A woman's place is at home with her husband,'" Bailey went on with a wicked glee.

"And that's where I would put her!" retorted Allingham, with spirit. "At least, I'd give her the chance."

"Go in, my boy," said Bailey, reaching out his hand to grasp his friend's, "I don't know how she feels—she's not easily won, I know; but try it. Go in and win."

That afternoon the opportunity presented itself. Allingham walked home with the Mayor. She usually drove home, but the clear, cool air of the closing autumn day, coming after long hours in office, had tempted her to test her pedestrian powers, and she had left City Hall alone. Allingham, however, appeared at the gates and asked permission to join her.

"If you care for a brisk walk of two miles," she answered, genially. "Or even if you give out and desert me on the road, you may begin. O, how good it is to shake off the dust of City Hall and take a bit of good, healthful exercise. Walking is the best way I know to keep the cobwebs from your mental sky, or to restore your tired nerves and overworked brain to normal condition."

"I walk five or six miles every morning," answered Allingham. "I believe it's the way God meant human beings to get over the ground."

"Yes," she added. "Mother Nature invented walking, while man invented carriages and cars and motors. How are Blatchley and Watts getting on with—but there, I chose to walk just to get away from the cares of office; and here I am bringing them along with me. Let's be just a boy and girl walking home from school together," she added, whimsically.

"Or man and woman walking through life together," he amended quickly.

She did not answer. The crises of her life did not usually find her so unprepared. They walked a little way in silence; then he spoke again.

"I love you, I want you. Won't you walk with me 'still farther on?'"

They had come to a shaded walk across a little bridge, and by a common impulse they lingered a little here. While she waited, a sudden vision came before her eyes—and her heart, which had been in a tumult at his first words, grew calm and cold. She saw, not the impassioned, tender man on the bridge, speaking in low, musical tones of love and devotion and his need of her; but the strong, self-sufficient, young chairman in his office of the Municipal League—the man who had seemed to her to have the least comprehension of the complex modern woman of anyone she had ever met.

"No, no," she said, drawing away from hm. "You do not know what you are saying. It cannot be."

"I know that our lives can never be complete while they run apart," he answered from the depths of his emotion. "I know that you need me as much as I need you—and because we are meant for each other: because God made us for each other."

"You do not know what you are saying," she replied, moving on briskly in the direction of home. "You happen to be drawn towards me now—by force of propinquity, perhaps; or because you were good enough to worry about me during my exile—"

"As though I could help it," he cried; "O, God, those days and nights of uncertainty!"

"But when you go home and think this over, you will thank me," she went on. "We are not fitted for each other. We are not meant for each other. I am what you call an advanced woman—your women-folks go farther and call me strong-minded. I have been brought up that way, and all my associations in life have developed that spirit within me. You have always looked upon women as inferior beings—Oh, yes, you have. You, too, were brought up that way. Even now you would tell me I am an exceptional woman—if I let you."

"You are," interrupted Allingham. "By Heaven, you are."

"But if I were to marry you," she pursued, still talking to the young man she had seen that morning a year ago in the Municipal League rooms, "you would soon resent my attitude towards life; you would want to restrict my life, to surround me with invisible limitations, such as you believe all femininity should be hedged with. I couldn't endure it. I never had to, and I couldn't submit to being estimated every day and in the intimacy of home life—according to the old-fashioned standards that narrow a woman's heart and mind until they hold nothing but pettiness and smallness and meanness of spirit. Because I couldn't, I should make you the most unhappy of men."

"But, Gertrude, hear me," he pleaded. "The past year has been a revelation. You have been a revelation to me."

"Yes, I," she retorted. "Not the eternal principles of manhood and womanhood, walking together—different and yet alike—only I—"

"I swear to you," he cried, "I have come to see that a woman may be all womanly and yet be as much a power and a worker in the world as her husband; that her place is where she can be of the greatest help to humanity."

"No," said Gertrude firmly, for his expression as he spoke the last sentence, was that of the man who had scorned the proposition of a woman for mayor—"no; we are radically opposed to each other. We are not just a boy and girl who might grow together in spite of all differences. We are a man and woman of strong opinions, just as unlike as possible. We should quarrel fearfully; and life is given us for something better than bickering and growing to hate each other. No, I say—no."

"Perhaps I'd better leave you here," said Allingham, coldly, when she stopped. And raising his hat, he turned down a side street. Somehow the charm of the long walk had fled and Gertrude hurried her steps, too, taking the shortest route to Van Deusen Hall. But when she was safely sheltered by the four walls of her own room, the strong-willed mayor of Roma threw herself on the bed and indulged in a good cry. For deep down in her heart, she knew she had done wrong—a wrong to the man who loved her—a wrong to her own better nature.

Later she went down to her dinner and faced the world again, cool and dignified; and no one could have dreamed that under her smiling exterior she was hiding a heartache.



CHAPTER XXVI

Retrospect and Prophecy

Just two years after the luncheon of the "Progressive Workers," at which the first proposition was made to elect a woman-mayor, the executive board met again to discuss plans for the coming winter. For the first time in many months Gertrude Van Deusen was with them. She had been obliged to forego club-meetings for the most part, unless she would neglect the affairs of her office, and she had all the woman's conscientious scruples about routine and detail.

"Well," said Mrs. Mason, who was president this year, "we can claim credit for a lot of good work in the past year or two. At last, we are a power in the city in fact, as well as in name."

"Yes," said Mrs. Bateman, "we are a recognized factor in public affairs. The chairman of the Municipal League came to me the other day to know what we propose to do about the winter campaign in politics and in civics."

"They know they can't do much without us," murmured the fluffy little woman in a new blue gown. "My husband says so."

"One doesn't wonder," said Cornelia Jewett, "when one looks over the city. We have our markets inspected, have shut up saloons and worse places, have put two women on the school board, cleaned the streets, established vacation schools and playgrounds, and elected a mayor."

"And by electing our mayor, have cleaned up the city pretty thoroughly from corruption," added Mrs. Turner. "For if Burke had been elected, things would have gone from bad to worse; if Allingham—well, I'm a little afraid of our men's doctrine of laissez-faire."

"Oh, I think Mr. Allingham would have done just as good work as has been done," said Gertrude, speaking for the first time. "He is both fearless and conscientious, and the moment he saw any sign of graft, he would have attacked it with courage and skill—and with less spectacular consequences than we did, perhaps," she added, smiling.

"I do not believe it," answered Mrs. Bateman. "He has developed wonderfully and is a man to be depended upon now; but it took you, Gertrude, to educate him."

The Mayor looked up quickly. The little episode on the bridge had never been told or repeated. Did anybody mistrust? But Mrs. Bateman kept on:

"There are thousands of good men who need awakening as to what women may do in the way of cleaning up a city, both literally and metaphorically. It takes both the man and the woman to make the model home; why not the model city?"

"We are going to have the honor of electing you again this winter, Gertrude?" asked Mrs. Mason. "May we announce it?"

"I scarcely think so," answered Gertrude. "I have done my full duty. I have given two years of the hardest work of which I am capable to my city. I stepped in as an emergency candidate; but now we shall find no difficulty in finding a candidate. Indeed, I may say that one is already being considered, although his name I must not tell."

"O, it's a shame that our men would think of setting up an opposition candidate," cried the fluffy lady, "after the splendid way you've filled the breach. My husband shall never countenance it in the world."

"Don't get excited, Bella," soothed Gertrude. "I may as well tell you, for it is a matter of considerable pride to me, that the regular committee from the Republican party has already waited upon me and asked me to accept the nomination again—"

She was interrupted by a vigorous clapping of hands.

"But the more I think it over, the more I feel that I did right in saying no," she went on. "I realize that I was an experiment—happily successful. But I believe it will be better all round now, to return to our normal condition, with a man in the mayor's chair."

"Only he must be a good one," said Mrs. Stillman, "one who will carry on your policy. And I can think of several who might be willing, now that you have performed the Herculean task—and who will keep the Augean stables clean."

"Rather than see them put a demagogue into my place I would try to keep it," answered Gertrude. "But with such good men in City Hall as we now have, there is no longer need for a woman there. I bespeak your co-operation for my successor, whose name shall be known in a few days, although I do not think he has consented yet. But when he does, and the candidate is announced, you must all work to elect him. Then I shall retire to private life—thank Heaven!"

"You aren't going to follow Mary Snow's example, are you?" asked the fluffy woman, saucily. "My husband says they are the happiest couple and the best mated, he ever saw."

"Your husband is right, Bella," said Gertrude. "Now, my friends, I must go. I have some work waiting in my office and two or three appointments to be made."

"Do you suppose she'd let us make her the next president of the P. W.'s?" asked Bella, when the mayor left the room.

"Bless you, no!" answered Mrs. Bateman. "What would a woman who has been mayor of a city want of our little club-presidency? Let her take the rest she has earned. She needs it; she is looking worn and pale."

"No wonder. I wish she would marry some nice man," answered the irrepressible Bella.

"There isn't any good enough for her," said Mrs. Mason shortly. "Now, ladies, if there is any business to be done, let's get at it."

When Gertrude arrived at her office John Allingham was waiting for her. She had not seen him alone for months, except for the few brief moments when he had been forced to consult her in regard to some detail of his department work. He looked anxiously at her when she entered the room, not dreaming that her heart was leaping in her bosom at sight of him.

"I want to see you alone a few minutes," he began.

The stenographer rose mechanically and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

"See here,—what is this about your retiring from office," he asked. "You mustn't do it."

"Mustn't I?" she asked.

"By no means," he answered decisively. "You have everything in good running order, your enemies routed, the grafters where they belong, a year of steady improvement under the new order of things,—and the public all with you. It is not right for you to leave now."

"Yes, it is," she answered, getting control of herself. "And it is time for you to take my place."

"I can't,—I have no desire to be mayor. You have proved your fitness for the post," he went on earnestly. "You have proved what a woman can do. Now keep on."

"No," she answered. "I want you to prove what you can do. The committee have asked you to stand?"

"Yes,—but then,—you should take another two years to fully establish and carry out the work you have begun. You see I have completely revised my ideas concerning a woman for mayor."

"Yes, thank you," she replied. "But, listen. I have, under God, had a successful term; I have been able to put through several changes for the better—with the help of good men like you. I am—yes, I admit it,—I am popular today with the people. But popularity is an uncertain thing, and there is no telling how soon it may wane. I am wise in letting go, while I am on the top-wave. Now, honestly, don't you think so?"

"If popularity is all you think of, yes," answered Allingham. "But it isn't."

"No, it isn't," she admitted. "But if you must have the truth, I'll go farther and say, the innovation of trying a woman for mayor was an experiment. The new broom has swept clean, and people are pleased so far. But the natural and right way of cities is to have a man at the helm. Between you and me, it is the fore-ordained method of nature to keep the man at the head of things, to take the brunt, to face the danger. Say what you will, the woman was not meant for this kind of thing. As we go on with our municipal life the realization of this is going to grow upon the people. While they are fully appreciative of all I have tried to do, there will develop the old desire for a man at the helm—and then comes discontent. Indeed, I can already see signs of it. You are the right man for the place. I shall always be thankful for the experience I have had; but I want no more." She smiled up at him. "I am more than content to pass it along,—not alone because the burden is heavy, and I am growing selfish,—but because you are the right man for mayor of Roma."

"Then if it is your wish," Allingham replied, "I will consent." He rose to go. "If only we might stand at the head together," he said. "With you to give a man courage—"

Gertrude interrupted him. "We should not be in accord. We could never agree. Don't talk about it." She rang the bell for the stenographer, and Allingham turned to go.

"May I say," she added, relenting at the expression on his face, "that you have done splendid work in your department? You have achieved the wonderful feat of improving our streets and keeping expenses down at the same time."

"That was not difficult," he answered, "where the opposite had been the practice for so long. I'm going down now to inspect that street we are laying out just back of your place. I'm sorry there had to be blasting."

"The street will be all the more picturesque when it's done," she replied. "Good afternoon, and thank you, for what you promised."

"O, I wonder if I can hold out," she said to herself as he went out. "If he had said another word, I should have given in,—but he didn't."

Still, that he would say it some other time, she knew. Then she would have to say yes.



CHAPTER XXVII

A Heart's Awakening

There were the afternoon letters to dictate, which took her nearly an hour; and there were callers who kept her in the office until nearly five o'clock. When they had all left she sat for a moment, resting and reviewing the events of the day.

"I wonder if I've done right," she queried. "He will succeed me and do great things for Roma, but O, I wish I could help him. I wish I dared let myself love him as he deserves. I wish I were one of the softer, clinging women, made to love a man and to depend on him for happiness. After all, they are the fortunate ones. But,—what am I saying? Brace up, Gertrude Van Deusen; don't be a sentimental girl! You've prided yourself on your independence of mind and heart. At your age, to be thinking of a man,—and one whose ideal is so far from what you know yourself to be! I'll go to Europe this winter and stay a year. I'll soon get back to my old spirit, and cease to think—"

The telephone rang.

"Well?" she asked.

"There's been an explosion down back of your house among the street-department's tools," some one was saying. "Two men were hit by flying rocks and hurt, we fear badly. One of them was a laborer,—"

"And the other?" asked Gertrude quickly, her heart divining the truth.

"Was Commissioner Allingham. He had just come to inspect the work. May we take them to your house until we can get the ambulance and the doctors?"

"Take them there at once," she responded. "Get the doctors, but don't call the ambulances yet—until we know what to do with the men. I'll be right down."

She flew to her closet and hurried into her coat. At the door, her carriage waited and she gave orders to drive as fast as possible. Then she sat back against the luxurious cushions, trying to control the terror that had come suddenly upon her spirit. She no longer doubted and hesitated. The shock had revealed the depths of her own heart which she had not sounded. She came in a moment to know that love is not a feeling to be analyzed or nurtured or trained into growth; the thing she had been repressing and torturing into subjection suddenly became a divine, reverential passion.

As they drove through the tree-shaded streets she trembled lest John Allingham might already have crossed the mysterious boundary which separates the living from the dead, and she would meet only a life-long sorrow at her door,—a sorrow which would crown her life with sanctifying, uplifting influences, even though it crushed her heart and benumbed her soul. But even that, she realized, was infinitely better than the starving of love with which she had been cheating herself. She bent her head and prayed while the carriage rolled rapidly on under the overarching elms and up the graveled driveway to her house.

Once within she passed rapidly upstairs, unfastening her wraps as she did so, and going towards the rooms where she knew the injured men would be carried. They had been taken, she was told, to her father's old room, where the doctor was already with them. Dared she go in?

Throwing her wraps in at the door to her own apartment, she turned again towards the sick-chamber. And then she stood face to face with John Allingham.

"John," she sobbed. "O, John."

Taken by itself, it was a meaningless sentence; but it satisfied him. He held out his arms and she nestled into them.

"You are really not fit to walk alone," she smiled up at him after an eloquent moment. "Ask me again to walk with you."

So it fell out that on the eve of the next mayor's inaugural, there was a wedding; and all of Roma rejoiced with the couple who pronounced the holy vows. For the loving heart of the woman was to stand alongside the strong desire of the man; and all Roma would be guided and helped by the two.

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AZALEA

By ELIA W. PEATTIE

The first book of the "Blue Ridge" Series

Azalea is the heroine of a good, wholesome story that will appeal to every mother as the sort of book she would like her daughter to read. In the homy McBirneys of Mt. Tennyson, down in the Blue Ridge country, and their hearty mountain neighbors, girl readers will find new friends they will be glad to make old friends.

This book marks a distinct advance in the quality of books offered for girls. No lack of action—no sacrifice of charm.

Four half-tone illustrations from drawings by Hazel Roberts. Attractive cover design, $1.00.

The second title in THE BLUE RIDGE SERIES will be published in 1913.

Publishers The Reilly & Britton Co. Chicago

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BOOKS FOR OLDER CHILDREN BY L. FRANK BAUM

The Daring Twins Series

By L. FRANK BAUM

In writing "The Daring Twins Series" Mr. Baum yielded to the hundreds of requests that have been made of him by youngsters, both boys and girls, who in their early childhood read and loved his famous "Oz" books, to write a story for young folk of the ages between twelve and eighteen.

A story of the real life of real boys and girls in a real family under real conditions.

Two Titles:

THE DARING TWINS PHOEBE DARING

While preparing these books Mr. Baum lived with his characters. They have every element of the drama of life as it begins within the lives of children. The two stories are a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous; the foibles and fancies of childhood, interspersed with humor and pathos.

Price, $1.00 each

Publishers The Reilly & Britton Co. Chicago

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BUNTY PRESCOTT AT ENGLISHMAN'S CAMP

By MAJOR M. J. PHILLIPS

Take a boy away from the stuffy schoolroom and turn him loose away up in the jack pine country—the land of deer and bear and trout, and he will grow "fat and saucy"—as did Bunty. And if he is a wide-awake youngster he will find excitement aplenty—as did Bunty. Give him a rifle, a rod and reel, and a desire to know things, and, well—you have a story every boy will enjoy reading.

"Bunty Prescott at Englishman's Camp" is a story full of boy interest, written by a man who knows boys as he knows the woods and streams—a story no youngster can read without learning something new of the lore of out-of-doors—hunting, fishing, camping out.

Snappy cover stamped in three colors, and three-color jacket.

Illustrated by Emile Nelson. Price $1.00

Publishers The Reilly & Britton Co. Chicago

THE END