Tense, hardly breathing, with all five senses converged into hearing, she stood flattened against the wall and strained to catch their every word. One voice was plainly Blake's. The other had a faintly familiar quality, though she could not place it. This second man had evidently come late, for their conversation was of a preliminary, beating-around-the-bush character—about the fierceness of the storm, and the additional security it lent their meeting.

Katherine searched her memory for the owner of this second voice. She had thought at first of Doctor Sherman, but this voice had not a tone in common with the young clergyman's clear, well-modulated baritone. This was a peculiar, bland, good-natured drawl. She had not heard it often, but she had unmistakably heard it. As she ransacked her memory it grew increasingly familiar, yet still eluded her. Then, all of a sudden, she knew it, and she stood amazed.

The second voice was the voice of Blind Charlie Peck.

Katherine was well acquainted with the secret bi-partisan arrangement common in so many American cities, by which the righteous voter is deluded into believing that there are two parties contending for the privilege of giving him their best service, whereas in reality the two are one, secretly allied because as a political trust they can most economically and profitably despoil the people. Her first thought was that these ancient enemies, who for ten years had belaboured one another with such a realistic show of bitterness upon the political stage of Westville, had all along been friends and partners behind the scenes. But of this idea she was presently disillusioned.

"Well, Mr. Blake, let's get down to business," Blind Charlie's voice floated out to her. "You've had a day to think over my proposition. Now what have you got to say to it?"

There was a brief silence. When Blake did speak, Katherine could discern in his repressed tone a keen aversion for his companion.

"My position is the same as last night. What you say is all guesswork. There is nothing in it."

Blind Charlie's voice was soft—purringly soft.

"Then why didn't you ask me to go to hell, and stay at home instead of coming out here?"

There was again a short silence.

"Come now," the soft voice persuaded, "let's don't go over what we did last night. I know I'm right."

"I tell you you're only guessing," Blake doggedly returned. "You haven't a scrap of proof."

"I don't need proof, when I'm certain about a thing," gently returned the voice of Blind Charlie. "I've been in politics for forty-eight years—ever since I was nineteen, when I cast my first vote. I've got sharpened up considerable in that time, and while I haven't been in on much in the last ten years, I can still smell a fat deal clean across the state. For the last three months I've been smelling, and smelling it keener every day, that you've got a rich game going."

"And so"—rather sarcastically—"you set Bruce on, to try to run the game down!"

"Well, I would use a little different figure of speech," returned Blind Charlie smoothly. "When I've got a coon up a hollow tree I build a fire in the hollow to bring him down. Bruce is my fire."

"And you think your coon is coming down?"

"I rather think he is. Don't you?"

"Well, I tell you he's not! For there's no coon up the tree!"

"I see I've got to state the thing to you again," said Blind Charlie patiently, and so softly that Katherine had to strain her utmost to get his words. "When I grew sure you had a big deal on about the water-works, I saw that the only way to force you to let me in was to put you in a fix where you would either have to split up or be in danger of losing the whole thing. So I nominated Bruce. He's one of the easiest I ever took in; but, I tell you, he is certainly one hell of a fighter! That's what I nominated him for. You know as well as I do the way he's swinging the voters round. It beats anything I've ever seen. If he keeps this up till election, and if I pull off a couple of good tricks I've got all ready, he'll be a winner, sure! And now"—Blind Charlie's purring voice thrust out its claws—"either I put Bruce in and smash your deal till it's not worth a damn, or else you come across!"

"There's nothing in it, I tell you!" declared Blake.

"There's no use keeping up that pretence," continued Blind Charlie. "You've had a day to think over my proposition. You know perfectly well what your choice is between: a sure thing if you divide with me, the risk of nothing if you refuse. So let's waste no more time. Come, which is it?"

There was a long silence.

"I understand," commented Blind Charlie, with a soft sympathy that Katherine knew was meant to bite like acid. "It's hard for a respectable man like you to mix up with Charlie Peck. But political business makes strange bed-fellows, and unless you're willing to sleep with almost anybody you'd better keep out of this kind of business altogether. But after all," he added, "I guess it's better to share a good bed than to have no bed at all."

"What do you want?" Blake asked huskily.

"Only my share of the bed," blandly returned Blind Charlie.

"What's that, in plain words?"

"Not much. Only half of what you're going to make."

Blake exploded.

"Damn you, Peck, you're nothing but a damned blackmailer!"

"All right, I agree to that," said Blind Charlie. Then he added in his soft voice: "But if I'm a blackmailer in this affair, then please, Mr. Blake, what do you call yourself?"

"You—you——" To the crouching figure outside the window Blake seemed to be half-choking. But suddenly he exploded again. "I'll not do it, Peck! I'll not do it—never while God's earth stands!"

"I guess you will, Blake!" Blind Charlie's voice was no longer soft; it had a slow, grating, crunching sound. "Damn your soul, you've been acting toward me with your holier-than-thou reformer's attitude for ten years. D'you think I'm a man to swallow that quietly? D'you think I haven't had it in for you all those ten years? Why, there hasn't been a minute that I haven't been looking for my chance. And at last I've got it! I've not only got a line on this water-works business, but I've found out all about your pretty little deal with Adamson during the last months you were Lieutenant-Governor!"

"Adamson!" ejaculated Blake.

"Yes, Adamson!" went on the harsh voice of Blind Charlie. "That hits you where you live, eh! You didn't know I had it, did you? Well, I didn't till to-day—but I've got it now all right! There, my cards are all on the table. Look 'em over. I don't want Bruce elected any more than you do; but either you do what I say, or by God I turn over to Bruce all I know about the Adamson affair and all I know about this water-works deal! Now I give you just one minute to decide!"

Katherine breathlessly awaited the answer. A space passed. She heard Blind Charlie stand up.

"Time's up! Good night—and to hell with you!"

"Wait! Wait!" Blake cried.

"Then you accept?"

Blake's voice shook. "Before I answer, what do you want?"

"I've already told you. Half of what you get."

"But I'm to get very little."

"Very little!" Blind Charlie's voice was ironical; it had dropped its tone of crushing menace. "Very little! Now I figure that you'll get the water-works for a third, or less, of their value. That'll give you something like half a million at the start-off, not to speak of the regular profits later on. Now as for me," he concluded drily, "I wouldn't call that such a very little sum that I'd kick it out of my way if I saw it lying in the road."

"But no such sum is lying there."

"No? Then what do you get?"

Blake did not answer.

"Come, speak out!"

Blake's voice came with an effort.

"I'm not doing this for myself."

"Then who for?"

Blake hesitated, then again spoke with an effort.

"The National Electric & Water Company."

Blind Charlie swore in his surprise.

"But I reckon you're not doing it for them for charity?"

"No."

"Well, what for?"

Blake again remained silent.

"Come, what for?" impatiently demanded Charlie.

"For a seat in the Senate."

"That's no good to me. What else?"

"Fifty thousand dollars."

"The devil! Is that all?" ejaculated Blind Charlie.

"Everything."

Blind Charlie swore to himself for a moment. Then he fell into a deep silence.

"Well, what's the matter?" Blake presently inquired.

"I was just wondering," replied Blind Charlie, slowly, "if it wouldn't be better to call this business off between you and me."

"Call it off?"

"Yes. I never imagined you were playing for such a little pile as fifty thousand. Since there's only fifty thousand in it"—his voice suddenly rang out with vindictive triumph—"I was wondering if it wouldn't pay me better to use what I know to help elect Bruce."

"Elect Bruce?" cried Blake in consternation.

"Exactly. Show you up, and elect Bruce," said Blind Charlie coolly. "To elect my mayor—there's more than fifty thousand for me in that."

There was a dismayed silence on Blake's part. But after a moment he recovered himself, and this time it was his voice that had the note of ascendency.

"You are forgetting one point, Mr. Peck," said he.

"Yes?"

"Bruce's election will not mean a cent to you. You will get no offices. Moreover, the control of your party machinery will be sure to pass from you to him."

"You're right," said the old man promptly. "See how quick I am to acknowledge the corn. However, after all," he added philosophically, "what you're getting is really enough for two. You take the senatorship, and I'll take the fifty thousand. What do you say to that?"

"What about Bruce—if I accept?"

"Bruce? Bruce is just a fire to smoke the coon out. When the coon comes down, I put out the fire."

"You mean?"

"I mean that I'll see that Bruce don't get elected."

"You'll make sure about that?"

"Oh, you just leave Bruce to me!" said Blind Charlie with grim confidence. "And now, do you accept?"

Blake was silent. He still shrunk from this undesirable alliance. Outside, Katherine again breathlessly hung upon his answer.

"What do you say?" demanded the old man sharply. "Do you accept? Or do I smash you?"

"I accept—of course."

"And we'll see this thing through together?"

"Yes."

"Then here you are. Let's shake on it."

They talked on, dwelling on details of their partnership, Katherine missing never a word.

At length, their agreement completed, they left the room, and Katherine slipped from the window across into the trees and made such haste as she could through the night and the storm to where she had left her horse. She heard one car go slowly out the entrance of the grove, its lamps dark that its visit might not be betrayed, and she heard it turn cautiously into the back-country road. After a little while she saw a glare shoot out before the car—its lamps had been lighted—and she saw it skim rapidly away. Soon the second car crept out, took the high back-country pike, and repeated the same tactics.

Then Katherine untied Nelly, mounted, and started slowly homeward along the River Road.



CHAPTER XVI

THROUGH THE STORM

Bowed low to shield herself against the ever fiercer buffets of the storm, Katherine gave Nelly free rein to pick her own way at her own pace through the blackness. The rain volleyed into her pitilessly, the wind sought furiously to wrest her from the saddle, the lightning cracked open the heavens into ever more fiery chasms, and the thunder rattled and rolled and reverberated as though a thousand battles were waging in the valley. It was as if the earth's dissolution were at hand—as if the long-gathered wrath of the Judgment Day were rending the earth asunder and hurling the fragments afar into the black abysm of eternity.

But Katherine, though gasping and shivering, gave minor heed to this elemental rage. Whatever terror she might have felt another time at such a storm, her brain had now small room for it. She was exultantly filled with the magnitude of her discovery. The water-works deal! The National Electric & Water Company! Bruce not a bona fide candidate at all, but only a pistol at Blake's head to make him stand and deliver! Blake and Blind Charlie—those two whole-hearted haters, who belaboured each other so valiantly before the public—in a secret pact to rob that same dear public!

At the highest moments of her exultation it seemed that victory was already hers; that all that remained was to proclaim to Westville on the morrow what she knew. But beneath all her exultation was a dim realization that the victory itself was yet to be won. What she had gained was only a fuller knowledge of who her enemies were, and what were their purposes.

Her mind raced about her discovery, seeking how to use it as the basis of her own campaign. But the moment of an extensive and astounding discovery is not the moment for the evolving of well-calculated plans; so the energies of her mind were spent on extravagant dreams or the leaping play of her jubilation.

One decision, however, she did reach. That was concerning Bruce. Her first impulse was to go to him and tell him all, in triumphant refutation of his ideas concerning woman in general, and her futility in particular. But as she realized that she was not at the end of her fight, but only at a better-informed beginning, she saw that the day of her triumph over him, if ever it was to come, had at least not yet arrived. As for admitting him into her full confidence, her woman's pride was still too strong for that. It held her to her determination to tell him nothing. She was going to see this thing through without him.

Moreover, she had another reason for silence. She feared, if she told him all, his impetuous nature might prompt him to make a premature disclosure of the information, and that would be disastrous to her future plans. But since he was vitally concerned in Blake's and Peck's agreement, it was at least his due that he be warned; and so she decided to tell him, without giving her source of information, that Blind Charlie proposed to sell him out.

Nelly's pace had slowed into a walk, and even then the gale at times almost swept the poor horse staggering from the road. The rain drove down in ever denser sheets. The occasional flashes of lightning served only to emphasize the blackness. So dense was it, it seemed a solid. The world could not seem blacker to a toad in the heart of a stone. The instants of crackling fire showed Katherine the river, below her in the valley, leaping, surging, almost out of its banks—the trees, writhing and wrestling, here and there one jaggedly discrowned. And once, as she was crossing a little wooden bridge that spanned a creek, she saw that it was almost afloat—and for an instant of terror she wished she had followed the higher back-country road taken by the two automobiles.

She had reached the foot of Red Man's Ridge, and was winding along the river's verge, when she thought she heard her name sound faintly through the storm. She stopped Nelly and sat in sudden stiffness, straining her ears. Again the voice sounded, this time nearer, and there was no mistaking her name.

"Miss West! Katherine!"

She sat rigid, almost choking. The next minute a shapeless figure almost collided with Nelly. It eagerly caught the bridle-rein and called out huskily:

"Is that you, Miss West?"

She let out a startled cry.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

"It's you! Thank God, I've found you!" cried the voice.

"Arnold Bruce!" she ejaculated.

He loosened the rein and moved to her side and put his hand upon the back of her saddle.

"Thank God I've found you!" he repeated, with a strange quaver to his voice.

"Arnold Bruce! What are you doing here?"

"Didn't you hear me shout after you, when you started, that I was coming, too?"

"I heard your voice, but not what you said."

"Do you think I would let you go out alone on a night like this?" he demanded in his unstrung tone. "It's no night for a man to be out, much less a woman!"

"You mean—you followed me?"

"What else did you think I'd do?"

"And on foot?"

"If I had stopped to get a horse I'd have lost your direction. So I ran after you."

They were moving on now, his hand upon the back of her saddle to link them together in the darkness. He had to lean close to her that their voices might be heard above the storm.

"And you have run after me all this way?"

"Ran and walked. But I couldn't make much headway in the storm—Calling out to you every few steps. I didn't know what might have happened to you. All kinds of pictures were in my mind. You might have been thrown and be lying hurt. In the darkness the horse might have wandered off the road and slipped with you into the river. It was—it was——" She felt the strong forearm that lay against her back quiver violently. "Oh, why did you do it!" he burst out.

A strange, warm tingling crept through her.

"I—I——" Something seemed to choke her.

"Oh, why did you do it!" he repeated.

Contrary to her determination of but a little while ago, an impulse surged up in her to tell him all she had just learned, to tell him all her plans. She hung for a moment in indecision. Then her old attitude, her old determination, resumed its sway.

"I had a suspicion that I might learn something about father's case," she said.

"It was foolishness!" he cried in fierce reproof, yet with the same unnerved quaver in his voice. "You should have known you could find nothing on such a night as this!"

She felt half an impulse to retort sharply with the truth. But the thought of his stumbling all that way in the blackness subdued her rising impulse to triumph over him. So she made no reply at all.

"You should never have come! If, when you started, you had stopped long enough for me to speak to you, I could have told you you would not have found out anything. You did not, now did you?"

She still kept silent.

"I knew you did not!" he cried in exasperated triumph. "Admit the truth—you know you did not!"

"I did not learn everything I had hoped."

"Don't be afraid to acknowledge the truth!"

"You remember what I said when you were first offered the nomination by Mr. Peck—to beware of him?"

"Yes. You were wrong. But let's not talk about that now!"

"I am certain now that I was right. I have the best of reasons for believing that Mr. Peck intends to sell you out."

"What reasons?"

She hesitated a moment.

"I cannot give them to you—now. But I tell you I am certain he is planning treachery."

"Your talk is wild. As wild as your ride out here to-night."

"But I tell you——"

"Let's talk no more about it now," he interrupted, brushing the matter aside. "It—it doesn't interest me now."

There was a blinding glare of lightning, then an awful clap of thunder that rattled in wild echoes down the valley.

"Oh, why did you come?" he cried, pressing closer. "Why did you come? It's enough to kill a woman!"

"Hardly," said she.

"But you're wet through," he protested.

"And so are you."

"Have my coat." And he started to slip it off.

"No. One more wet garment won't make me any drier."

"Then put it over your head. To keep off this awful beat of the storm. I'll lead your horse."

"No, thank you; I'm all right," she said firmly, putting out a hand and checking his motion to uncoat himself. "You've been walking. I've been riding. You need it more than I do." And then she added: "Did I hurt you much?"

"Hurt me?"

"When I struck you with my crop."

"That? I'd forgotten that."

"I'm very sorry—if I hurt you."

"It's nothing. I wish you'd take my coat. Bend lower down." And moving forward, he so placed himself that his broad, strong body was a partial shield to her against the gale.

This new concern for her, the like of which he had never before evinced the faintest symptoms, begot in her a strange, tingling, but blurred emotion. They moved on side by side, now without speech, gasping for the very breath that the gale sought to tear away from their lips. The storm was momently gaining power and fury. Afterward the ancient weather-men of Calloway County were to say that in their time they had never seen its like. The lightning split the sky into even more fearsome fiery chasms, and in the moments of wild illumination they could see the road gullied by scores of impromptu rivulets, could glimpse the broad river billowing and raging, the cattle huddling terrified in the pastures, the woods swaying and writhing in deathlike grapple. The wind hurled by them in a thousand moods and tones, all angry; a fine, high shrieking on its topmost note—a hoarse snarl—a lull, as though the straining monster were pausing to catch its breath—then a roaring, sweeping onrush as if bent on irresistible destruction. And on top of this glare, this rage, was the thousandfold crackle, rattle, rumble of the thunder.

At such a time wild beasts, with hostility born in their blood, draw close together. It was a storm to resolve, as it were, all complex shades of human feeling into their elementary colours—when fear and hate and love stand starkly forth, unqualified, unblended. Without being aware that she was observing, Katherine sensed that Bruce's agitation was mounting with the storm. And as she felt his quivering presence beside her in the furious darkness, her own emotion surged up with a wild and startling strength.

A tree top snapped off just before them with its toy thunder.

"Will this never stop!" gasped Bruce, huskily. "God, I wish I had you safe home!"

The tremulous tensity in his voice set her heart to leaping with an unrestraint yet wilder. But she did not answer.

Suddenly Nelly stumbled in a gully and Katherine pitched forward from the saddle. She would have fallen, had not a pair of strong arms closed about her in mid-air.

"Katherine—Katherine!" Bruce cried, distracted. Nelly righted herself and Katherine regained her seat, but Bruce still kept his arm about her. "Tell me—are you hurt?" he demanded.

She felt the arms around her trembling with intensity.

"No," she said with a strange choking.

"Oh, Katherine—Katherine!" he burst out. "If you only knew how I love you!"

What she felt could not crystallize itself into words.

"Do you love me?" he asked huskily.

Just then there was a flash of lightning. It showed her his upturned face, appealing, tender, passion-wrought. A wild, exultant thrill swept through her. Without thinking, without speaking, her tingling arm reached out, of its own volition as it were, and closed about his neck, and she bent down and kissed him.

"Katherine!" he breathed hoarsely. "Katherine!" And he crushed her convulsively to him.

She lay thrilled in his arms.... After a minute they moved on, his arm about her waist, her arm about his neck. Rain, wind, thunder were forgotten. Forgotten were their theories of life. For that hour the man and woman in them were supremely happy.



CHAPTER XVII

THE CUP OF BLISS

The next morning Katherine lay abed in that delicious lassitude which is the compound of complete exhaustion and of a happiness that tingles through every furthermost nerve. And as she lay there she thought dazedly of the miracle that had come to pass. She had not even guessed that she was in love with Arnold Bruce. In fact, she had been resisting her growing admiration for him, and the day before she could hardly have told whether her liking was greater than her hostility. Then, suddenly, out there in the storm, all complex counter-feelings had been swept side, and she had been revealed to herself.

She was tremulously, tumultuously happy. She had had likings for men before, but she had never guessed that love was such a mighty, exultant thing as this. But, as she lay there, the thoughts that had never come to her in the storm out there on the River Road, slipped into her mind. Into her exultant, fearful, dizzy happiness there crept a fear of the future. She clung with all her soul to the ideas of the life she wished to live; she knew that he, in all sincerity, was militantly opposed to those ideas. Difference in religious belief had brought bitterness, tragedy even, into the lives of many a pair of lovers. The difference in their case was no less firmly held to on either side, and she realized that the day must come when their ideas must clash, when they two must fight it out. Quivering with love though she was, she could but look forward to that inevitable day with fear.

But there were too many other new matters tossing in her brain for her to dwell long upon this dread. At times she could but smile whimsically at the perversity of love. The little god was doubtless laughing in impish glee at what he had brought about. She had always thought in a vague way that she would sometime marry, but she had always regarded it as a matter of course that the man she would fall in love with would be one in thorough sympathy with her ideas and who would help her realize her dream. And here she had fallen in love with that dreamed-of man's exact antithesis!

And yet, as she thought of Arnold Bruce, she could not imagine herself loving any other man in all the world.

Love gave her a new cause for jubilation over her last night's discovery. Victory, should she win it, and win it before election, had now an added value—it would help the man she loved. But as she thought over her discovery, she realized that while she might create a scandal with it, it was not sufficient evidence nor the particular evidence that she desired. Blake and Peck would both deny the meeting, and against Blake's denial her word would count for nothing, either in court or before the people of Westville. And she could not be present at another conference with two or three witnesses, for the pair had last night settled all matters and had agreed that it would be unnecessary to meet again. Her discovery, she perceived more clearly than on the night before, was not so much evidence as the basis for a more enlightened and a more hopeful investigation.

Another matter, one that had concerned her little while Bruce had held but a dubious place in her esteem, now flashed into her mind and assumed a large importance. The other party, as she knew, was using Bruce's friendship for her as a campaign argument against him; not on the platform of course—it never gained that dignity—but in the street, and wherever the followers of the hostile camps engaged in political skirmish. Its sharpest use was by good housewives, with whom suffrage could be exercised solely by influencing their husbands' ballots. "What, vote for Mr. Bruce! Don't you know he's a friend of that woman lawyer? A man who can see anything in that Katherine West is no fit man for mayor!"

All this talk, Katherine now realized, was in some degree injuring Bruce's candidacy. With a sudden pain at the heart she now demanded of herself, would it be fair to the man she loved to continue this open intimacy? Should not she, for his best interests, urge him, require him, to see her no more?

She was in the midst of this new problem, when her Aunt Rachel brought her in a telegram. She read it through, and on the instant the problem fled her mind. She lay and thought excitedly—hour after hour—and her old plans altered where they had been fixed, and took on definite form where previously they had been unsettled.

The early afternoon found her in the office of old Hosie Hollingsworth.

"What do you think of that?" she demanded, handing him the telegram.

Old Hosie read it with a puzzled look. Then slowly he repeated it aloud:

"'Bouncing boy arrived Tuesday morning. All doing well. John.'" He raised his eyes to Katherine. "I'm always glad to see people lend the census a helping hand," he drawled. "But who in Old Harry is John?"

"Mr. Henry Manning. The New York detective I told you about."

"Eh? Then what——"

"It's a cipher telegram," Katherine explained with an excited smile. "It means that he will arrive in Westville this afternoon, and will stay as long as I need him."

"But what should he send that sort of a fool thing for?"

"Didn't I tell you that he and I are to have no apparent relations whatever? An ordinary telegram, coming through that gossiping Mr. Gordon at the telegraph office, would have given us away. Now I've come to you to talk over with you some new plans for Mr. Manning. But first I want to tell you something else."

She briefly outlined what she had learned the night before; and then, without waiting to hear out his ejaculations, rapidly continued: "I told Mr. Manning to come straight to you, on his arrival, to learn how matters stood. All my communications to him, and his to me, are to be through you. Tell him everything, including about last night."

"And what is he to do?"

"I was just coming to that." Her brown eyes were gleaming with excitement. "Here's my plan. It seems to me that if Blind Charlie Peck could force his way into Mr. Blake's scheme and become a partner in it, then Mr. Manning can, too."

Old Hosie blinked.

"Eh? Eh? How?"

"You are to tell Mr. Manning that he is Mr. Hartsell, or whoever he pleases, a real estate dealer from the East, and that his ostensible business in Westville is to invest in farm lands. Buying in run-down or undrained farms at a low price and putting them in good condition, that's a profitable business these days. Besides, since you are an agent for farm lands, that will explain his relations with you. Understand?"

"Yes. What next?"

"Secretly, he is to go around studying the water-works. Only not so secretly that he won't be noticed."

"But what's that for?"

"Buying farm land is only a blind to hide his real business," she went on rapidly. "His real business here is to look into the condition of the water-works with a view to buying them in. He is a private agent of Seymour & Burnett; you remember I am empowered to buy the system for Mr. Seymour. When Mr. Blake and Mr. Peck discover that a man is secretly examining the water-works—and they'll discover it all right; when they discover that this man is the agent of Mr. Seymour, with all the Seymour millions behind him—and we'll see that they discover that, too—don't you see that when they make these discoveries this may set them to thinking, and something may happen?"

"I don't just see it yet," said Old Hosie slowly, "but it sounds like there might be something mighty big there."

"When Mr. Blake learns there is another secret buyer in the field, a rival buyer ready and able to run the price up to three times what he expects to pay—why, he'll see danger of his whole plan going to ruin. Won't his natural impulse be, rather than run such a risk, to try to take the new man in?—just as he took in Blind Charlie Peck?"

"I see! I see!" exclaimed Old Hosie. "By George, it's mighty clever! Then what next?"

"I can't see that far. But with Mr. Manning on the inside, our case is won."

Old Hosie leaned forward.

"It's great! Great! If you're not above shaking hands with a mere man——"

"Now don't make fun of me," she cried, gripping the bony old palm.

"And while you're quietly turning this little trick," he chuckled, "the Honourable Harrison Blake will be carefully watching every move of Elijah Stone, the best hippopotamus in the sleuth business, and be doing right smart of private snickering at the simplicity of womankind."

She flushed, but added soberly:

"Of course it's only a plan, and it may not work at all."

They talked the scheme over in detail. At length, shortly before the hour at which the afternoon express from the East was due to arrive, Katherine retired to her own office. Half an hour later, looking down from her window, she saw the old surrey of Mr. Huggins' draw up beside the curb, in it a quietly dressed, middle-aged passenger who had the appearance of a solid man of affairs. He crossed the sidewalk and a little later Katherine heard him enter Old Hosie's office on the floor below. After a time she saw the stranger go out and drive around the Square to the Tippecanoe House, Peck's hotel, where Katherine had directed that Mr. Manning be sent to facilitate his being detected by the enemy.

Her plan laid, Katherine saw there was little she could do but await developments—and in the meantime to watch Blake, which Mr. Mannings' role would not permit his doing, and to watch and study Doctor Sherman. Despite this new plan, and her hopes in it, she realized that it was primarily a plan to defeat Blake's scheme against the city. She still considered Doctor Sherman the pivotal character in her father's case; he was her father's accuser, the man who, she believed more strongly every day, could clear him with a few explanatory words. So she determined to watch him none the less closely because of her new plan—to keep her eyes upon him for signs that might show his relations to Blake's scheme—to watch for signs of the breaking of his nerve, and at the first sign to pounce accusingly upon him.

When she reached home that afternoon she found Bruce awaiting her. Since morning, mixed with her palpitating love and her desire to see him, there had been dread of this meeting. In the back of her mind the question had all day tormented her, should she, for his own interests, send him away? But sharper than this, sharper a hundredfold, was the fear lest the difference between their opinions should come up.

But Bruce showed no inclination to approach this difference. Love was too new and near a thing for him to wander from the present. For this delay she was fervently grateful, and forgetful of all else she leaned back in a big old walnut chair and abandoned herself completely to her happiness, which might perhaps be all too brief. They talked of a thousand things—talk full of mutual confession: of their former hostility, of what it was that had drawn their love to one another, of last night out in the storm. The spirits of both ran high. Their joy, as first joy should be, was sparkling, effervescent.

After a time she sat in silence for several moments, smiling half-tenderly, half-roguishly, into his rugged, square-hewed face, with its glinting glasses and its chevaux de frise of bristling hair.

"Well," he demanded, "what are you thinking about?"

"I was thinking what very bad eyes I have."

"Bad eyes?"

"Yes. For up to yesterday I always considered you——But perhaps you are thin-skinned about some matters?"

"Me thin-skinned? I've got the epidermis of a crocodile!"

"Well, then—up to yesterday I always thought you—but you're sure you won't mind?"

"I tell you I'm so thick-skinned that it meets in the middle!"

"Well, then, till yesterday I always thought you rather ugly."

"Glory be! Eureka! Excelsior!"

"Then you don't mind?"

"Mind?" cried he. "Did you think that I thought I was pretty?"

"I didn't know," she replied with her provoking, happy smile, "for men are such conceited creatures."

"I'm not authorized to speak for the rest, but I'm certainly conceited," he returned promptly. "For I've always believed myself one of the ugliest animals in the whole human menagerie. And at last my merits are recognized."

"But I said 'till yesterday'," she corrected. "Since then, somehow, your face seems to have changed."

"Changed?"

"Yes. I think you are growing rather good-looking." Behind her happy raillery was a tone of seriousness.

"Good-looking? Me good-looking? And that's the way you dash my hopes!"

"Yes, sir. Good-looking."

"Woman, you don't know what sorrow is in those words you spoke! Just to think," he said mournfully, "that all my life I've fondled the belief that when I was made God must have dropped the clay while it was still wet."

"I'm sorry——"

"Don't try to comfort me. The blow's too heavy." He slowly shook his head. "I never loved a dear gazelle——"

"Oh, I don't mean the usual sort of good-looking," she consoled him. "But good-looking like an engine, or a crag, or a mountain."

"Well, at any rate," he said with solemn resignation, "it's something to know the particular type of beauty that I am."

Suddenly they both burst into merry laughter.

"But I'm really in earnest," she protested. "For you really are good-looking!"

He leaned forward, caught her two hands in his powerful grasp and almost crushed his lips against them.

"Perhaps it's just as well you don't mind my face, dear," he half-whispered, "for, you know, you're going to see a lot of it."

She flushed, and her whole being seemed to swim in happiness. They did not speak for a time; and she sat gazing with warm, luminous eyes into his rugged, determined face, now so soft, so tender.

But suddenly her look became very grave, for the question of the morning had recurred to her. Should she not give him up?

"May I speak about something serious?" she asked with an effort. "Something very serious?"

"About anything in the world!" said he.

"It's something I was thinking about this morning, and all day," she said. "I'm afraid I haven't been very thoughtful of you. And I'm afraid you haven't been very thoughtful of yourself."

"How?"

"We've been together quite often of late."

"Not often enough!"

"But often enough to set people talking."

"Let 'em talk!"

"But you must remember——"

"Let's stop their tongues," he interrupted.

"How?"

"By announcing our engagement." He gripped her hands. "For we are engaged, aren't we?"

"I—I don't know," she breathed.

"Don't know?" He stared at her. "Why, you're white as a sheet! You're not in earnest?"

"Yes."

"What does this mean?"

"I—I had started to tell you. You must remember that I am an unpopular person, and that in my father I am representing an unpopular man. And you must remember that you are candidate for mayor."

He had begun to get her drift.

"Well?"

"Well, I am afraid our being together will lessen your chances. And I don't want to do anything in the world that will injure you."

"Then you think——"

"I think—I think"—she spoke with difficulty—"we should stop seeing each other."

"For my sake?"

"Yes."

He bent nearer and looked her piercingly in the eyes.

"But for your own sake?" he demanded.

She did not speak.

"But for your own sake?" he persisted.

"For my sake—for my sake——" Half-choked, she broke off.

"Honest now? Honest?"

She did not realize till that moment all it would mean to her to see him no more.

"For my own sake——" Suddenly her hands tightened about his and she pressed them to her face. "For my sake—never! never!"

"And do you think that I——" He gathered her into his strong arms. "Let them talk!" he breathed passionately against her cheek. "We'll win the town in spite of it!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE CANDIDATE AND THE TIGER

The town's talk continued, as Katherine knew it would. But though she resented it in Bruce's behalf, it was of small importance in her relationship with him compared with the difference in their opinions. She was in constant fear, every time he called, lest that difference should come up. But it did not on the next day, nor on the next. He was too full of love on the one hand, too full of his political fight on the other. The more she saw of him the more she loved him, so thoroughly fine, so deeply tender, was he—and the more did she dread that avoidless day when their ideas must come into collision, so masterful was he, so certain that he was right.

On the fourth evening after their stormy ride she thought the collision was at hand.

"There is something serious I want to speak to you about," he began, as they sat in the old-fashioned parlour. "You know what the storm has done to the city water. It has washed all the summer's accumulation of filth down into the streams that feed the reservoir, and since the filtering plant is out of commission the water has been simply abominable. The people are complaining louder than ever. Blake and the rest of his crew are telling the public that this water is a sample of what everything will be like if I'm elected. It's hurting me, and hurting me a lot. I don't blame the people so much for being influenced by what Blake says, for, of course, they don't know what's going on beneath the surface. But I've got to make some kind of a reply, and a mighty strong one, too. Now here's where I want you to help me."

"What can I do?" she asked.

"If I could only tell the truth—what a regular knock-out of a reply that would be!" he exclaimed. "Some time ago you told me to wait—you expected to have the proof a little later. Do you have any idea how soon you will have your evidence?"

Again she felt the impulse to tell him all she knew and all her plans. But a medley of motives worked together to restrain her. There was the momentum of her old decision to keep silent. There was the knowledge that, though he loved her as a woman, he still held her in low esteem as a lawyer. There was the instinct that what she knew, if saved, might in some way serve her when they two fought their battle. And there was the thrilling dream of waiting till she had all her evidence gathered and then bringing it triumphantly to him—and thus enable him through her to conquer.

"I'm afraid I can't give you the proof for a while yet," she replied.

She saw that he was impatient at the delay, that he believed she would discover nothing. She expected the outbreak that very instant. She expected him to demand that she turn the case over to the Indianapolis lawyer he had spoken to her about, who would be able to make some progress; to demand that she give up law altogether, and demand that as his intended wife she give up all thought of an independent professional career. She nerved herself for the shock of battle.

But it did not come.

"All right," he said. "I suppose I'll have to wait a little longer, then."

He got up and paced the floor.

"But I can't let Blake and his bunch go on saying those things without any kind of an answer from me. I've got to talk back, or get out of the fight!"

He continued pacing to and fro, irked by his predicament, frowning with thought. Presently he paused before her.

"Here is what I'm going to say," he announced decisively. "Since I cannot tell the whole truth, I'm going to tell a small part of the truth. I'm going to say that the condition of the water is due to intentional mismanagement on the part of the present administration—which everybody knows is dominated by Blake. Blake's party, in order to prevent my election on a municipal ownership platform, in order to make sure of remaining in power, is purposely trying to make municipal ownership fail. And I'm going to say this as often, and as hard, as I can!"

In the days that followed he certainly did say it hard, both in the Express and in his speeches. The charge had not been made publicly before, and, stated with Bruce's tremendous emphasis, it now created a sensation. Everybody talked about it; it gave a yet further excitement to a most exciting campaign. There was vigorous denial from Blake, his fellow candidates, and from the Clarion, which was supporting the Blake ticket. Again and again the Clarion denounced Bruce's charge as merely the words of a demagogue, a yellow journalist—merely the irresponsible and baseless calumny so common in campaigns. Nevertheless, it had the effect that Bruce intended. His stock took a new jump, and sentiment in his favour continued to grow at a rate that made him exult and that filled the enemy with concern.

This inquietude penetrated the side office of the Tippecanoe House and sorely troubled the heart of Blind Charlie Peck. So, early one afternoon, he appeared in the office of the editor of the Express. His reception was rather more pleasant than on the occasion of his first visit, now over a month before; for, although Katherine had repeated her warning, Bruce had given it little credit. He did not have much confidence in her woman's judgment. Besides, he was reassured by the fact that Blind Charlie had, in every apparent particular, adhered to his bargain to keep hands off.

"Just wait a second," Bruce said to his caller; and turning back to his desk he hastily scribbled a headline over an item about a case of fever down in River Court. This he sent down to the composing-room, and swung around to the old politician. "Well, now, what's up?"

"I just dropped around," said Blind Charlie, with his good-natured smile, "to congratulate you on the campaign you're making. You're certainly putting up a fine article of fight!"

"It does look as if we had a pretty fair chance of winning," returned Bruce, confidently.

"Great! Great!" said Blind Charlie heartily. "I certainly made no mistake when I picked you out as the one man that could win for us."

"Thanks. I've done my best. And I'm going to keep it up."

"That's right. I told you I looked on it as my last campaign. I'm pretty old, and my heart's not worth a darn. When I go, whether it's up or down, I'll travel a lot easier for having first soaked Blake good and proper."

Bruce did not answer. He expected Blind Charlie to leave; in fact, he wanted him to go, for it lacked but a quarter of an hour of press time. But instead of departing, Blind Charlie settled back in his chair, crossed his legs and leisurely began to cut off a comfortable mouthful from his plug of tobacco.

"Yes, sir, it's a great fight," he continued. "It doesn't seem that it could be improved on. But a little idea has come to me that may possibly help. It may not be any good at all, but I thought it wouldn't do any harm to drop in and suggest it to you."

"I'll be glad to hear it," returned Bruce. "But couldn't we talk it over, say in half an hour? It's close to press time, and I've got some proofs to look through—in fact the proof of an article on that water-works charge of mine."

"Oh, I'll only take a minute or two," said Blind Charlie. "And you may want to make use of my idea in this afternoon's paper."

"Well, go ahead. Only remember that at this hour the press is my boss."

"Of course, of course," said Blind Charlie amiably. "Well, here's to business: Now I guess I've been through about as many elections as you are years old. It isn't what the people think in the middle of the campaign that wins. It's what they think on election day. I've seen many a horse that looked like he had the race on ice at the three quarters licked to a frazzle in the home stretch. Same with candidates. Just now you look like a winner. What we want is to make sure that you'll still be out in front when you go under the wire."

"Yes, yes," said Bruce impatiently. "What's your plan?"

"You've got the people with you now," the old man continued, "and we want to make sure you don't lose 'em. This water-works charge of yours has been a mighty good move. But I've had my ear to the ground. I've had it to the ground for nigh on fifty years, and if there's any kind of a political noise, you can bet I hear it. Now I've detected some sounds which tell me that your water-works talk is beginning to react against you."

"You don't say! I haven't noticed it."

"Of course not; if you had, there'd be no use for me to come here and tell you," returned Blind Charlie blandly. "That's where the value of my political ear comes in. Now in my time I've seen many a sensation react and swamp the man that started it. That's what we've got to look out for and guard against."

"U'm! And what do you think we ought to do?"

Bruce was being taken in a little easier than Blind Charlie had anticipated.

"If I were you," the old man continued persuasively, "I'd pitch the tune of the whole business in a little lower key. Let up on the big noise you're making—cut out some of the violent statements. I think you understand. Take my word for it, quieter tactics will be a lot more effective at this stage of the game. You've got the people—you don't want to scare them away."

Bruce stared thoughtfully, and without suspicion, at the loose-skinned, smiling, old face.

"U'm!" he said. "U'm!"

Blind Charlie waited patiently for two or three minutes.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked.

"You may be right," Bruce slowly admitted.

"There's no doubt of it," the old politician pleasantly assured him.

"And of course I'm much obliged. But I'm afraid I disagree with you."

"Eh?" said Blind Charlie, with the least trace of alarm.

Bruce's face tightened, and the flat of his hand came down upon his desk.

"When you start a fight, the way to win is to keep on fighting. And that's what I'm going to do."

Blind Charlie started forward in his chair.

"See here," he began, authoritatively. But in an instant his voice softened. "You'll be making a big mistake if you do that. Better trust to my older head in this. I want to win as much as you do, you know."

"I admit you may be right," said Bruce doggedly. "But I'm going to fight right straight ahead."

"Come, now, listen to reason."

"I've heard your reasons. And I'm going right on with the fight."

Blind Charlie's face grew grim, but his voice was still gentle and insinuating.

"Oh, you are, are you? And give no attention to my advice?"

"I'm sorry, but that's the way I see it."

"I'm sorry, but that's the way I don't see it."

"I know; but I guess I'm running this campaign," retorted Bruce a little hotly.

"And I guess the party chairman has some say-so, too."

"I told you, when I accepted, that I would take the nomination without strings, or I wouldn't take it at all. And you agreed."

"I didn't agree to let you ruin the party."

Bruce looked at him keenly, for the first time suspicious. Katherine's warning echoed vaguely in his head.

"See here, Charlie Peck, what the devil are you up to?"

"Better do as I say," advised Peck.

"I won't!"

"You won't, eh?" Blind Charlie's face had grown hard and dark with threats. "If you don't," he said, "I'm afraid the boys won't see your name on the ticket on election day."

Bruce sprang up.

"Damn you! What do you mean by that?"

"I reckon you're not such an infant that you need that explained."

"You're right; I'm not!" cried Bruce. "And so you threaten to send word around to the boys to knife me on election day?"

"As I said, I guess I don't need to explain."

"No, you don't, for I now see why you came here," cried Bruce, his wrath rising as he realized that he had been hoodwinked by Blind Charlie from the very first. "So there's a frame-up between you and Blake, and you're trying to sell me out and sell out the party! You first tried to wheedle me into laying down—and when I wouldn't be fooled, you turned to threats!"

"The question isn't what I came for," snapped Blind Charlie. "The question is, what are you going to do? Either you do as I say, or not one of the boys will vote for you. Now I want your answer."

"You want my answer, do you? Why—why——" Bruce glared down at the old man in a fury. "Well, by God, you'll get my answer, and quick!"

He dropped down before his typewriter, ran in a sheet of paper, and for a minute the keys clicked like mad. Then he jerked out the sheet of paper, scribbled a cabalistic instruction across its top, sprang to his office door and let out a great roar of "Copy!"

He quickly faced about upon Blind Charlie.

"Here's my answer. Listen:

"'This afternoon Charlie Peck called at the office of the Express and ordered its editor, who is candidate for mayor, to cease from his present aggressive campaign tactics. He threatened, in case the candidate refused, to order the "boys" to knife him at the polls.

"'The candidate refused.

"'Voters of Westville, do your votes belong to you, or do they belong to Charlie Peck?'

"That's my answer, Peck. It all goes in big, black type in a box in the centre of the first page of this afternoon's paper. We'll see whether the party will stand for your methods." At this instant the grimy young servitor of the press appeared. "Here, boy. Rush that right down."

"Hold on!" cried Peck in consternation. "You're not going to print that thing?"

"Unless the end of the world happens along just about now, that'll be on the street in half an hour." Bruce stepped to the door and opened it wide. "And, now, clear out! You and your votes can go plum to hell!"

"Damn you! But that piece will do you no good. I'll deny it!"

"Deny it—for God's sake do! Then everybody will know I'm telling the truth. And let me warn you, Charlie Peck—I'm going to find out what your game is! I'm going to show you up! I'm going to wipe you clear off the political map!"

Blind Charlie swore at him again as he passed out of the door.

"We're not through with each other yet—remember that!"

"You bet we're not!" Bruce shouted after him. "And when we are, there'll not be enough of you left to know what's happened!"



CHAPTER XIX

WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK

Two hours later Bruce was striding angrily up and down the West parlour, telling Katherine all about it.

She refrained from saying, "I told you so," by either word or look. She was too wise for such a petty triumph. Besides, there was something in that afternoon's Express, which Bruce had handed her that interested her far more than his wrathful recital of Blind Charlie's treachery; and although she was apparently giving Bruce her entire attention, and was in fact mechanically taking in his words, her mind was excitedly playing around this second piece of news.

For Doctor Sherman, so said the Express, had that day suddenly left Westville. He had been failing in health for many weeks and was on the verge of a complete breakdown, the Express sympathetically explained, and at last had yielded to the importunities of his worried congregation that he take a long vacation. He had gone to the pine woods of the North, and to insure the unbroken rest he so imperatively required, to prevent the possibility of appealing letters of inconsiderate parishioners or other cares from following him into his isolation, he had, at his doctor's command, left no address behind.

Katherine instantly knew that this vacation was a flight. The situation in Westville had grown daily more intense, and Doctor Sherman had seemed to her to be under an ever-increasing strain. Blake, she was certain, had ordered the young clergyman to leave, fearing, if he remained, that his nerve might break and he might confess his true relation to her father's case. She realized that now, when Doctor Sherman was apparently weakening, was the psychological time to besiege him with accusation and appeal; and while Bruce was rehearsing his scene with Blind Charlie she was rapidly considering means for seeking out Doctor Sherman and coming face to face with him.

Her mind was brought back from its swift search by Bruce swinging a chair up before her and sitting down.

"But, Katherine—I'll show Peck!" he cried, fiercely, exultantly. "He doesn't know what a fight he's got ahead of him. This frees me entirely from him and his machine, and I'm going to beat him so bad that I'll drive him clear out of politics."

She nodded. That was exactly what she was secretly striving to help him do.

He became more composed, and for a hesitant, silent moment he peered thoughtfully into her eyes.

"But, Katherine—this affair with Peck this afternoon shows me I am up against a mighty stiff proposition," he said, speaking with the slowness of one who is shaping his statements with extreme care. "I have got to fight a lot harder than I thought I would have to three hours ago, when I thought I had Peck with me. To beat him, and beat Blake, I have got to have every possible weapon. Consequently, circumstances force me to speak of a matter that I wish I did not have to talk about." He reached forward and took her hand. "But, remember, dear," he besought her tenderly, "that I don't want to hurt you. Remember that."

She felt a sudden tightening about the heart.

"Yes—what is it?" she asked quietly.

"Remember, dear, that I don't want to hurt you," he repeated. "It's about your father's case. You see how certain victory would be if we only had the evidence to prove what we know?"

"I see."

"I don't mean to say one single unkind word about your not having made—having made—more encouraging progress." He pressed her hand; his tone was gentle and persuasive. "I'll confess I have secretly felt some impatience, but I have not pressed the matter because—well, you see that in this critical situation, with election so near, I'm forced to speak about it now."

"What would you like?" she said with an effort.

"You see we cannot afford any more delays, any more risks. We have got to have the quickest possible action. We have got to use every measure that may get results. Now, dear, you would not object, would you, if at this critical juncture, when every hour is so valuable, we were to put the whole matter in the hands of my Indianapolis lawyer friend I spoke to you about?"

The gaze she held upon his continued steady, but she was pulsing wildly within and she had to swallow several times before she could speak.

"You—you think he can do better than I can?"

"I do not want to say a single word that will reflect on you, dear. But we must admit the facts. You have had the case for over four months, and we have no real evidence as yet."

"And you think he can get it?"

"He's very shrewd, very experienced. He'll follow up every clue with detectives. If any man can succeed in the short time that remains, he can."

"Then you—you think I can't succeed?"

"Come, dear, let's be reasonable!"

"But I think I can."

"But, Katherine!" he expostulated.

She felt what was coming.

"I'm sure I can—if you will only trust me a little longer!" she said desperately.

He dropped her hand.

"You mean that, though I ask you to give it up, you want to continue the case?"

She grew dizzy, his figure swam before her.

"I—I think I do."

"Why—why——" He broke off. "I can't tell you how surprised I am!" he exclaimed. "I have said nothing of late because I was certain that, if I gave nature a little time in which to work, there would be no need to argue the matter with you. I was certain that, now that love had entered your life, your deeper woman's instincts would assert themselves and you would naturally desire to withdraw from the case. In fact, I was certain that your wish to practise law, your ambition for a career outside the home, would sink into insignificance—and that you would have no desire other than to become a true woman of the home, where I want my wife to be, where she belongs. Oh, come now, Katherine," he added with a rush of his dominating confidence, taking her hand again, "you know that's just what you're going to do!"

She sat throbbing, choking. She realized that the long-feared battle was now inevitably at hand. For the moment she did not know whether she was going to yield or fight. Her love of him, her desire to please him, her fear of what might be the consequence if she crossed him, all impelled her toward surrender; her deep-seated, long-clung-to principles impelled her to make a stand for the life of her dreams. She was a tumult of counter instincts and emotions. But excited as she was, she found herself looking on at herself in a curious detachment, palpitantly wondering which was going to win—the primitive woman in her, the product of thousands of generations of training to fit man's desire, or this other woman she contained, shaped by but a few brief years, who had come ardently to believe that she had the right to be what she wanted to be, no matter what the man required.

"Oh, come now, dear," Bruce assured her confidently, yet half chidingly, "you know you are going to give it all up and be just my wife!"

She gazed at his rugged, resolute face, smiling at her now with that peculiar forgiving tenderness that an older person bestows upon a child that is about to yield its childish whim.

"There now, it's all settled," he said, smoothing her hand. "And we'll say no more about it."

And then words forced their way up out of her turbulent indecision.

"I'm afraid it isn't settled."

His eyebrows rose in surprise.

"No?"

"No. I want to be your wife, Arnold. But—but I can't give up the other."

"What! You're in earnest?" he cried.

"I am—with all my heart!"

He sank back and stared at her. If further answer were needed, her pale, set face gave it to him. His quick anger began to rise, but he forced it down.

"That puts an entirely new face on the matter," he said, trying to speak calmly. "The question, instead of merely concerning the next few weeks, concerns our whole lives."

She tried to summon all her strength, all her faculties, for the shock of battle.

"Just so," she answered

"Then we must go over the matter very fully," he said. His command over himself grew more easy. He believed that what he had to do was to be patient, and talk her out of her absurdity. "You must understand, of course," he went on, smiling at her tenderly, "that I want to support my wife, and that I am able to support my wife. I want to protect her—shield her—have her lean upon me. I want her to be the goddess of my home. The goddess of my home, Katherine! That's what I want. You understand, dear, don't you?"

She saw that he confidently expected her to yield to his ideal and accept it, and she now knew that she could never yield. She paused a space before she spoke, in a sort of terror of what might be the consequence of the next few moments.

"I understand you," she said, duplicating his tone of reason. "But what shall I do in the home? I dislike housework."

"There's no need of your doing it," he promptly returned. "I can afford servants."

"Then what shall I do in the home?" she repeated.

"Take things easy. Enjoy yourself."

"But I don't want to enjoy myself. I want to do things. I want to work."

"Come, come, be reasonable," he said, with his tolerant smile. "You know that's quite out of the question."

"Since you are going to pay servants," she persisted, "why should I idle about the house? Why should not I, an able-bodied person, be out helping in the world's work somehow—and also helping you to earn a living?"

"Help me earn a living!" He flushed, but his resentment subsided. "When I asked you to marry me I implied in that question that I was able and willing to support you. Really, Katherine, it's quite absurd for you to talk about it. There is no financial necessity whatever for you to work."

"You mean, then, that I should not work because, in you, I have enough to live upon?"

"Of course!"

"Do you know any man, any real man I mean," she returned quickly, "who stops work in the vigour of his prime merely because he has enough money to live upon? Would you give up your work to-morrow if some one were willing to support you?"

"Now, don't be ridiculous, Katherine! That's quite a different question. I'm a man, you know."

"And work is a necessity for you?"

"Why, of course."

"And you would not be happy without it?" she eagerly pursued.

"Certainly not."

"And you are right there! But what you don't seem to understand is, that I have the same need, the same love, for work that you have. If you could only recognize, Arnold, that I have the same feelings in this matter that you have, then you would understand me. I demand for myself the right that all men possess as a matter of course—the right to work!"

"If you must work," he cried, a little exasperated, "why, of course, you can help in the housework."

"But I also demand the right to choose my work. Why should I do work which I do not like, for which I have no aptitude, and which I should do poorly, and give up work which interests me, for which I have been trained, and for which I believe I have an aptitude?"

"But don't you realize, in doing it, if you are successful, you are taking the bread out of a man's mouth?" he retorted.

"Then every man who has a living income, and yet works, is also taking the bread out of a man's mouth. But does a real man stop work because of that? Besides, if you use that argument, then in doing my own housework I'd be taking the bread out of a woman's mouth."

"Why—why——" he stammered. His face began to redden. "We shouldn't belittle our love with this kind of talk. It's all so material, so sordid."

"It's not sordid to me!" she cried, stretching out a hand to him. "Don't be angry, Arnold. Try to understand me—please do, please do. Work is a necessity of life to you. It is also a necessity of life to me. I'm fighting with you for the right to work. I'm fighting with you for my life!"

"Then you place work, your career, above our happiness together?" he demanded angrily.

"Not at all," she went on rapidly, pleadingly. "But I see no reason why there should not be both. Our happiness should be all the greater because of my work. I've studied myself, Arnold, and I know what I need. To be thoroughly happy, I need work; useful work, work that interests me. I tell you we'll be happier, and our happiness will last longer, if only you let me work. I know! I know!"

"Dream stuff! You're following a mere will-o'-the-wisp!"

"That's what women have been following in the past," she returned breathlessly. "Look among your married friends. How many ideally happy couples can you count? Very, very few. And why are there so few? One reason is, because the man finds, after the novelty is worn off, that his wife is uninteresting, has nothing to talk about; and so his love cools to a good-natured, passive tolerance of her. Most married men, when alone with their wives, sit in stupid silence. But see how the husband livens up if a man joins them! This man has been out in the interesting world. The wife has been cooped up at home. The man has something to talk about. The wife has not. Well, I am going to be out in the interesting world, doing something. I am going to have something to talk to my husband about. I am going to be interesting to him, as interesting to him as any man. And I am going to try to hold his love, Arnold, the love of his heart, the love of his head, to the very end!"

He was exasperated by her persistence, but he still held himself in check.

"That sounds very plausible to you. But there is one thing in your argument you forget."

"And that?"

"We are grown-up people, you and I. I guess we can talk straight out."

"Yes. Go on!"

He gazed at her very steadily for a moment.

"There are such things as children, you know."

She returned his steady look.

"Of course," she said quickly. "Every normal woman wants children. And I should want them too."

"There—that settles it," he said with triumph. "You can't combine children and a profession."

"But I can!" she cried. "And I should give the children the very best possible care, too! Of course there are successive periods in which the mother would have to give her whole attention to the children. But if she lives till she is sixty-five the sum total of her forty or forty-five married years that she has to give up wholly to her children amounts to but a few years. There remains all the balance of her life that she could give to other work. Do you realize how tremendously the world is changing, and how women's work is changing with it?"

"Oh, let's don't mix in statistics, and history, and economics with our love!"

"But we've got to if our love is to last!" she cried. "We're living in a time when things are changing. We've got to consider the changes. And the greatest changes are, and are going to be, in woman's work. Up in our attic are my great-grandmother's wool carders, her spinning wheel, her loom, all sorts of things; she spun, wove, made all the clothing, did everything. These things are now done by professional experts; that sort of work has been taken away from woman. Now all that's left for the woman to do in the home is to cook, clean, and care for children. Life is still changing. We are still developing. Some time these things too will be done, and better done, by professional experts—though just how, or just when, I can't even guess. Once there was a strong sentiment against the child being taken from the mother and being sent to school. Now most intelligent parents are glad to put their children in charge of trained kindergartners at four or five. And in the future some new institution, some new variety of trained specialist, may develop that will take charge of the child for a part of the day at an even earlier age. That's the way the world is moving!"

"Thanks for your lecture on the Rise, Progress and Future of Civilization," he said ironically, trying to suppress himself. "But interesting as it was, it has nothing whatever to do with the case. We're not talking about civilization, and the universe, and evolution, and the fourth dimension, and who's got the button. We're talking about you and me. About you and me, and our love."

"Yes, Arnold, about you and me and our love," she cried eagerly. "I spoke of these things only because they concern you and me and our love so very, very much."

"Of all things for two lovers to talk about!" he exclaimed with mounting exasperation.

"They are the things of all things! For our love, our life, hangs upon them!"

"Well, anyhow, you haven't got these new institutions, these new experts," he retorted, brushing the whole matter aside. "You're living to-day, not in the millennium!"

"I know, I know. In the meantime, life for us women is in a stage of transition. Until these better forms develop we are going to have a hard time. It will be difficult for me to manage, I know. But I'm certain I can manage it."

He stood up. His face was very red, and he swallowed once or twice before the words seemed able to come out.

"I'm surprised, Katherine—surprised!—that you should be so persistent in this nonsense. What you say is all against nature. It won't work."

"Perhaps not. But at least you'll let me try! That's all I ask of you—that you let me try!"

"It would be weak in me, wrong in me, to yield."

"Then you're not willing to give me a chance?"

He shook his head.

She rose and moved before him.

"But, Arnold, do you realize what you are doing?" she cried with desperate passion. "Do you realize what it is I'm asking you for? Work, interesting work—that's what I need to make me happy, to make you happy! Without it, I shall be miserable, and you will be miserable in having a miserable wife about you—and all our years together will be years of misery. So you see what a lot I'm fighting for: work, development, happiness!—the happiness of all our married years!"

"That's only a delusion. For your sake, and my sake, I've got to stand firm."

"Then you will not let me?"

"I will not."

She stared palely at his square, adamantine face.

"Arnold!" she breathed. "Arnold!—do you know what you're trying to do?"

"I am trying to save you from yourself!"

"You're trying to break my will across yours," she cried a little wildly. "You're trying to crush me into the iron mould of your idea of a woman. You're trying to kill me—yes, to kill me."

"I am trying to save you!" he repeated, his temper breaking its frail leash. "Your ideas are all wrong—absurd—insane!"

"Please don't be angry, Arnold!" she pleaded.

"How can I help it, when you won't listen to reason! When you are so perversely obstinate!"

"I'm not obstinate," she cried breathlessly, holding one of his hands tightly in both her own. "I'm just trying to cling as hard as I can to life—to our happiness. Please give me a chance, Arnold! Please, please!"

"Confound such obstinate wrong-headedness!" he exploded. "No, I tell you! No! And that settles it!"

She shrank back.

"Oh!" she cried. Her breast began to rise and fall tumultuously, and her cheeks slowly to redden. "Oh!" she cried again. Then her words leaped hotly out: "Oh, you bigot!"

"If to stand by what I know is right, and to save you from making a fool of yourself, is to be a bigot—then I'm a bigot all right, and I thank the God that made me one!"

"And you think you are going to save me from myself?" she demanded.

He stepped nearer, and towering over her, he took hold of her shoulders in a powerful grasp and looked down upon her dominantly.

"I know I am! I am going to make you exactly what I want you to be!"

Her eyes flamed back up into his.

"Because you are the stronger?"

"Because I am the stronger—and because I am right," he returned grimly.

"I admit that you are the superior brute," she said with fierce passion. "But you will never break me to your wishes!"

"And I tell you I will!"

"And I tell you you will not!"

There was a strange and new fire in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean this," she returned, and the hands that gripped her shoulders felt her tremble through all her body. "I should not expect you to marry a woman who was so unreasonable as to demand that you, for her sake, should give up your loved career. And, for my part, I shall never marry a man so unreasonable as to make the same demand of me."

He fell back a pace.

"You mean——"

"Was I not plain enough? I mean that you will never have the chance to crush me into your iron mould, for I will never marry you."

"What!" And then: "So I'm fired, am I?" he grated out.

"Yes, for you're as narrow and as conventional as the rest of men," she rushed on hotly. "You never say a word so long as a woman's work is unpleasant! It's all right for her to scrub, and wash dishes, and wear her life away in factories. But as soon as she wants to do any work that is pleasant and interesting and that will gain her recognition, you cry out that she's unwomanly, unsexed, that she's flying in the face of God! Oh, you are perfectly willing that woman, on the one hand, should be a drudge, or on the other the pampered pet of your one-woman harem. But I shall be neither, I tell you. Never! Never! Never!"

They stared at one another, trembling with passion.

"And you," he said with all the fierce irony of his soul, "and you, I suppose, will now go ahead and clear your father, expose Blake, and perform all those other wonders you've talked so big about!"

"That's just what I am going to do!" she cried defiantly.

"And that's just what you are not!" he blazed back. "I may have admired the woman in you—but, for those things, you have not the smallest atom of ability. Your father's trial, your failure to get evidence—hasn't that shown you? You are going to be a failure—a fizzle—a fiasco! Did you hear that? A pitiable, miserable, humiliated fiasco! And time will prove it!"

"We'll see what time will prove!" And she swept furiously past him out of the room.



CHAPTER XX

A SPECTRE COMES TO TOWN

For many an hour Katherine's wrath continued high, and she repeated, with clinched hands, all her invectives against the bigotry of Bruce. He was a bully—a boor—a brute—a tyrant. He considered himself the superman. And in pitiable truth he was only a moral coward—for his real reason in opposing her had been that he was afraid to have Westville say that his wife worked. And he had insulted her, for his parting words to her had been a jeering statement that she had no ability, only a certain charm of sex. How, oh, how, had she ever imagined that they two might possibly share a happy life together?

But after a season her wrath began to subside, and she began to see that after all Bruce was no very different man from the Bruce she had loved the last few weeks. He had been thoroughly consistent with himself. She had known that he was cocksure and domineering. She had foreseen that the chances were at least equal that he would take the position he had. She had foreseen and feared this very issue. His virtues were just as big as on yesterday, when she and he had thought of marriage, and his faults were no greater. And she realized, after the first passion of their battle had spent its force, that she still loved him.

In the long hours of the night a pang of emptiness, of vast, irretrievable loss, possessed her. She and Love had touched each other for a space—then had flung violently apart, and were speeding each in their eternally separate direction. Life for her might be rich and full of honour and achievement, but as she looked forward into the long procession of years, she saw that life was going to have its dreariness, its vacancies, its dull, unending aches. It was going to be such a very, very different business from that life of work and love and home and mutual aid she had daringly dreamed of during the two weeks she and Bruce had been lovers.

But she did not regret her decision. She did not falter. Her resentment of Bruce's attitude stiffened the backbone of her purpose. She was going straight ahead, bear the bitterness, and live the life she had planned as best she could.

But there quickly came other matters to share her mind with a lost love and a broken dream. First was the uproar created by Bruce's defiant announcement in the Express of Blind Charlie's threatened treachery. That sensation reigned for a day or two, then was almost forgotten in a greater. This second sensation made its initial appearance quite unobtrusively; it had a bare dozen lines down in a corner of the same issue of the Express that had contained Bruce's defiance and Doctor Sherman's departure. The substance of the item was that two cases of illness had been reported from the negro quarter in River Court, and that the doctors said the symptoms were similar to those of typhoid fever.

Those two cases of fever in that old frame tenement up a narrow, stenchy alley were the quiet opening of a new act in the drama that was played that year in Westville. The next day a dozen cases were reported, and now the doctors unhesitatingly pronounced them typhoid. The number mounted rapidly. Soon there were a hundred. Soon there was an epidemic. And the Spectre showed no deference to rank. It not only stalked into the tenements of River Court and Railroad Alley—and laid its felling finger on starveling children and drink-shattered men—It visited the large and airy homes on Elm and Maple Streets and Wabash Avenue, where those of wealth and place were congregated.

In Westville was the Reign of Terror. Haggard doctors were ever on the go, snatching a bite or a moment's sleep when chance allowed. Till then, modern history had been reckoned in Westville from the town's invasion by factories, or from that more distant time when lightning had struck the Court House. But those milestones of time are to-day forgotten. Local history is now dated, and will be for many a decade, from the "Days of Fever" and the related events which marked that epoch.

In the early days of the epidemic Katherine heard one morning that Elsie Sherman had just been stricken. She had seen little of Elsie during the last few weeks; the strain of their relation was too great to permit the old pleasure in one another's company; but at this news she hastened to Elsie's bedside. Her arrival was a God-send to the worn and hurried Doctor Woods, who had just been called in. She telegraphed to Indianapolis for a nurse; she telegraphed to a sister of Doctor Sherman to come; and she herself undertook the care of Elsie until the nurse should arrive.

"What do you think of her case, Doctor?" she asked anxiously when Doctor Woods dropped in again later in the day.

He shook his head.

"Mrs. Sherman is very frail."

"Then you think——"

"I'm afraid it will be a hard fight. I think we'd better send for her husband."

Despite her sympathy for Elsie, Katherine thrilled with the possibility suggested by the doctor's words. Here was a situation that should bring Doctor Sherman out of his hiding, if anything could bring him. Once home, and unnerved by the sight of his wife precariously balanced between life and death, she was certain that he would break down and confess whatever he might know.

She asked Elsie for her husband's whereabouts, but Elsie answered that she had had letters but that he had never given an address. Katherine at once determined to see Blake, and demand to know where Doctor Sherman was; and after the nurse arrived on an afternoon train, she set out for Blake's office.

But Blake was out, and his return was not expected for an hour. To fill in the time, Katherine paid a visit to her father in the jail. She told him of Elsie's illness, and told at greater length than she had yet had chance to do about the epidemic. In his turn he talked to her about the fever's causes; and when she left the jail and returned to Blake's office an idea far greater than merely asking Doctor Sherman's whereabouts was in her mind.

This time she was told that Blake was in, but could see no one. Undeterred by this statement, Katherine walked quickly past the stenographer and straight for his private door, which she quickly and quietly opened and closed.

Blake was sitting at his desk, his head bowed forward in one hand. He was so deep in thought, and she had entered so quietly, that he had not heard her. She crossed to his desk, stood opposite him, and for a moment gazed down upon his head.

"Mr. Blake," she remarked at length.

He started up.

"You here!" he ejaculated.

"Yes. I came to talk to you."

He did not speak at once, but stood staring a little wildly at her. She had not spoken to him since the day of her father's trial, nor seen him save at a distance. She was now startled at the change this closer view revealed to her. His eyes were sunken and ringed with purple, his face seemed worn and thin, and had taken on a tinge of yellowish-green.

"I left orders that I could see no one," he said, trying to speak sharply.

"I know," she answered quietly. "But you'll see me."

For an instant he hesitated.

"Very well—sit down," he said, resuming his chair. "Now what is it you wish?"

She seated herself and leaned across the desk toward him.

"I wish to talk to you about the fever," she said with her former composure, and looking him very steadily in the eyes. "I suppose you know what caused it?"

"I am no doctor. I do not."

"Then let me tell you. My father has just told me that there must have been a case of typhoid during the summer somewhere back in the drainage area of the water-system. That recent big storm carried the summer's accumulation of germ-laden filth down into the streams. And since the city was unguarded by a filter, those germs were swept into the water-mains, we drank them, and the epidemic——"

"That filter was useless—a complete failure!" Blake broke in rather huskily.

"You know, Mr. Blake, and I know," she returned, "that that filter has been, and still is, in excellent condition. And you know, and I know, that if it had been in operation, purifying the water, there might possibly have been a few cases of typhoid, but there would never have been this epidemic. That's the God's truth, and you know it!"

He swallowed, but did not answer her.

"I suppose," she pursued in her steady tone, "you realize who is responsible for all these scores of sick?"

"If what you say is true, then your father is guilty, for building such a filter."

"You know better. You know that the guilty man is yourself."

His face grew more yellowish-green.

"It's not so! No one is more appalled by this disaster than I am!"

"I know you are appalled by the outcome. You did not plan to murder citizens. You only planned to defraud the city. But this epidemic is the direct consequence of your scheme. Every person who is now in a sick bed, you put that person there. Every person who may later go to his grave, you will have sent that person there."

Her steady voice grew more accusing. "What does your conscience say to you? And what do you think the people will say to you, to the great public-spirited Mr. Blake, when they learn that you, prompted by the desire for money and power, have tried to rob the city and have stricken hundreds with sickness?"

His yellowish face contorted most horribly, but he did not answer.

"I see that your conscience has been asking you those same questions," Katherine pursued. "It is something, at least, that your conscience is not dead. Those are not pleasant questions to have asked one, are they?"

Again his face twisted, but he seemed to gather hold of himself.

"You are as crazy as ever—that's all rot!" he said huskily, with a denying sweep of a clinched hand. "But what do you want?"

"Three things. First, that you have the filter put back in commission. Let's at least do what we can to prevent any more danger from that source."

"The filter is useless. Besides, I am no official, and have nothing to do with it."

"It is in perfect condition, and you have everything to do with it," she returned steadily.

He swallowed. "I'll suggest it to the mayor."

"Very well; that is settled. To the next point. Have you heard that Mrs. Sherman is sick?"

"Yes."

"She wants her husband."

"Well?"

"My second demand is to know where you have hidden Doctor Sherman."

"Doctor Sherman? I have nothing to do with Doctor Sherman!"

"You also have everything to do with Doctor Sherman," she returned steadily. "He is one of the instruments of your plot. You feared that he would break down and confess, and so you sent him out of the way. Where is he?"

Again his face worked spasmodically. "I tell you once more I have nothing whatever to do with Doctor Sherman! Now I hope that's all. I am tired of this. I have other matters to consider. Good day."

"No, it is not all. For there is my third demand. And that is the most important of the three. But perhaps I should not say demand. What I make you is an offer."

"An offer?" he exclaimed.

She did not reply to him directly. She leaned a little farther across his desk and looked at him with an even greater intentness.

"I do not need to ask you to pause and think upon all the evil you have done the town," she said slowly. "For you have thought. You were thinking at the moment I came in. I can see that you are shaken with horror at the unforeseen results of your scheme. I have come to you to take sides with your conscience; to join it in asking you, urging you, to draw back and set things as nearly right as you can. That is my demand, my offer, my plea—call it what you will."

He had been gazing at her with wide fixed eyes. When he spoke, his voice was dry, mechanical.

"Set things right? How?"

"Come forward, confess, and straighten out the situation of your own accord. Westville is in a terrible condition. If you act at once, you can at least do something to relieve it."

"By setting things right, as you call it, you of course include the clearing of your father?"

"The clearing of my father, of course. And let me say to you, Mr. Blake—and for this moment I am speaking as your friend—that it will be better for you to clear this whole matter up voluntarily, at once, than to be exposed later, as you certainly will be. To clear this matter at once may have the result of simplifying the fight against the epidemic—it may save many lives. That is what I am thinking of first of all just now."

"You mean to say, then, that it is either confess or be exposed?"

"There is no use in my beating about the bush with you," she replied in her same steady tone. "For I know that you know that I am after you."

He did not speak at once. He sat gazing fixedly at her, with twitching face. She met his gaze without blinking, breathlessly awaiting his reply.

Suddenly a tremor ran through him and his face set with desperate decision.

"Yes, I know you are after me! I know you are having me followed—spied upon!" There was a biting, contemptuous edge to his tone. "Even if I were guilty, do you think I would be afraid of exposure from you? Oh, I know the man you have sleuthing about on my trail. Elijah Stone! And I once thought you were a clever girl!"

"You refuse, then?" she said slowly.

"I do! And I defy you! If your accusations against me are true, go out and proclaim them to the city. I'm willing to stand for whatever happens!"

She regarded his flushed, defiant face. She perceived clearly that she had failed, that it was useless to try further.

"Very well," she said slowly. "But I want you to remember in the future that I have given you this chance; that I have given you your choice, and you have chosen."

"And I tell you again that I defy you!"

"You are a more hardened man, or a more desperate man, than I thought," said she.

He did not reply upon the instant, but sat gazing into her searching eyes. Before he could speak, the telephone at his elbow began to ring. He picked it up.

"Hello! Yes, this is Mr. Blake.... Her temperature is the same, you say?... No, I have not had an answer yet. I expect a telegram any minute. I'll let you know as soon as it comes. Good-by."

"Is some one sick?" Katherine asked, as he hung up the receiver.

"My mother," he returned briefly, his recent defiance all gone.

Katherine, too, for the moment, forgot their conflict.

"I did not know it. There are so many cases, you know. Who is attending her?"

"Doctor Hunt, temporarily," he answered. "But these Westville doctors are all amateurs in serious cases. I've telegraphed for a specialist—the best man I could hear of—Doctor Brenholtz of Chicago."

His defiance suddenly returned.

"If I have seemed to you worn, unnerved, now you know the real cause!" he said.

"So," she remarked slowly, "the disaster you have brought on Westville has struck your own home!"

His face twitched convulsively.

"I believe we have finished our conversation. Good afternoon."

Katherine rose.

"And if she dies, you know who will have killed her."

He sprang up.

"Go! Go!" he cried.

But she remained in her tracks, looking him steadily in the eyes. While they stood so, the stenographer entered and handed him a telegram. He tore it open, glanced it through, and stood staring at it in a kind of stupor.

"My God!" he breathed.

He tore the yellow sheet across, dropped the pieces in the waste-basket and began to pace his room, on his face a wild, dazed look. He seemed to have forgotten Katherine's presence. But a turn brought her into his vision. He stopped short.

"You still here?"

"I was waiting to hear if Doctor Brenholtz was coming," she said.

He stared at her a moment. Then he crossed to his desk, took the two fragments of the telegram from his waste-basket and held them out to her.

"There is what he says."

She took the telegram and read:

"No use my coming. Best man on typhoid in West lives in your own town. See Dr. David West."

Katherine laid down the yellow pieces and raised her eyes to Blake's white, strained face. The two gazed at each other for a long moment.

"Well?" he said huskily.

"Well?" she quietly returned.

"Do you think I can get him?"

"How can you get a man who is serving a sentence in jail?"

"If I—if I——" He could not get the words out.

"Yes. If you confess—clear him—get him out of jail—of course he will treat the case."

"I didn't mean that! God!" he cried, "is confession of a thing I never did the fee you exact for saving a life?"

"What, you still hold out?"

"I'm not guilty! I tell you, I'm not guilty!"

"Then you'll not confess?"

"Never! Never!"

"Not even to save your mother?"

"She's sick—very sick. But she's not going to die—I'll not let her die! Your father does not have to be cleared to get out of jail. In this emergency I can arrange to get him out for a time on parole. What do you say?"

She gazed at the desperate, wildly expectant figure. A little shiver ran through her.

"What do you say?" he repeated.

"There can be but one answer," she replied. "My father is too big a man to demand any price for his medical skill—even the restoration of his honest name by the man who stole it. Parole him, and he will go instantly to Mrs. Blake."

He dropped into his chair and seized his telephone.

"Central, give me six-o-four—quick!" There was a moment of waiting. "This you, Judge Kellog?... This is Harrison Blake. I want you to arrange the proper papers for the immediate parole of Doctor West. I'll be responsible for everything. Am coming right over and will explain."

He fairly threw the receiver back upon its hook. "Your father will be free in an hour," he cried. And without waiting for a reply, he seized his hat and hurried out.



CHAPTER XXI

BRUCE TO THE FRONT

Katherine came down from Blake's office with many thoughts surging through her brain: Of her father's release—of Blake's obduracy—of his mother's illness; but at the forefront of them all, because demanding immediate action, was the need of finding Doctor Sherman.

As she stepped forth from the stairway, she saw Arnold Bruce striding along the Square in her direction. There was a sudden leaping of her heart, a choking at her throat. But they passed each other with the short cold nod which had been their manner of greeting during the last few days when they had chanced to meet.

The next instant a sudden impulse seized her, and she turned about.

"Mr. Bruce," she called after him.

He came back to her. His face was rather pale, but was doggedly resolute. Her look was not very different from his.

"Yes, Miss West?" said he.

For a moment it was hard for her to speak. No word, only that frigid nod, had passed between them since their quarrel.

"I want to ask you something—and tell you something," she said coldly.

"I am at your service," said he.

"We cannot talk here. Suppose we cross into the Court House yard?"

In silence he fell into step beside her. They did not speak until they were in the yard where passers-by could not overhear them.

"You know of Mrs. Sherman's illness?" she began in a distant, formal tone.

"Yes."

"It promises to be serious. We must get her husband home if possible. But no one has his address. An idea for reaching him has been vaguely in my head. It may not be good, but it now seems the only way."

"Do you mind telling me what it is?"

"Doctor Sherman is somewhere in the pine woods of the North. What I thought about doing was to order some Chicago advertising agency to insert notices in scores of small dailies and weeklies up North, announcing to Doctor Sherman his wife's illness and urging him to come home. My hope is that one of the papers may penetrate whatever remote spot he may be in and the notice reach his eyes. What I want to ask you is the name of an agency."

"Black & Graves are your people," said he.

"Also I want to know how to go about it to get prompt action on their part."

"Write out the notice and send it to them with your instructions. And since they won't know you, better enclose a draft or money order on account. No, don't bother about the money; you won't know how much to send. I know Phil Black, and I'll write him to-day guaranteeing the account."

"Thank you," she said.

"You're perfectly welcome," said he with his cold politeness. "Is there anything else I can do?"

"That's all about that. But I have something to tell you—a suggestion to make for your campaign, if you will not consider it impertinent."

"Quite otherwise. I shall be very glad to get it."

"You have been saying in your speeches that the bad water has been due to intentional mismanagement of the present administration, which is ruled by Mr. Blake, for the purpose of rendering unpopular the municipal ownership principle."

"I have, and it's been very effective."

"I suggest that you go farther."

"How?"

"Make the fever an issue of the campaign. The people, in fact all of us, have been too excited, too frightened, to understand the relation between the bad management of the water-works, the bad water, and the fever. Tell them that relation. Only tell it carefully, by insinuation if necessary, so that you will avoid the libel law—for you have no proof as yet. Make them understand that the fever is due to bad water, which in turn is due to bad management of the water-works, which in turn is due to the influence of Mr. Blake."

"Great! Great!" exclaimed Bruce.

"Oh, the idea is not really mine," she said coldly. "It came to me from some things my father told me."