Blake read the effect of his words in her white face and dismayed manner.

"Suppose they have repudiated their statements? What then?" he crushingly persisted.

She caught desperately at her courage and her vanishing triumph.

"But they have not repudiated."

"You think not? You shall see!"

He turned to Blind Charlie. "Tell him to step in."

Blind Charlie moved quickly to a side door. Katherine leaned forward and stared after him, breathless, her heart stilled. She expected the following moment to see the slender figure of Doctor Sherman enter the room, and hear his pallid lips deny he had ever made the confession of a few hours before.

Blind Charlie opened the door.

"They're ready for you," he called.

It was all Katherine could do to keep from springing up and letting out a sob of relief. For it was not Doctor Sherman who entered. It was the broad and sumptuous presence of Elijah Stone, detective. He crossed and stood before Blake.

"Mr. Stone," said Blake, sharply, "I want you to answer a few questions for the benefit of Miss West. First of all, you were employed by Miss West on a piece of detective work, were you not?"

"I was," said Mr. Stone, avoiding Katherine's eye.

"And the nature of your employment was to try to discover evidence of an alleged conspiracy against the city on my part?"

"It was."

"And you made to her certain reports?"

"I did."

"Let me inform you that she has used those reports as the basis of a libellous story which she is about to print. Now answer me, did you give her any real evidence that would stand the test of a court room?"

Mr. Stone gazed at the ceiling.

"My statements to her were mere surmises," he said with the glibness of a rehearsed answer. "Nothing but conjecture—no evidence at all."

"What is your present belief concerning these conjectures?"

"I have since discovered that my conjectures were all mistakes."

"That will do, Mr. Stone!"

Blake turned quickly upon Katherine. "Well, now what have you got to say?" he demanded.

She could have laughed in her joy.

"First of all," she called to the withdrawing detective, "I have this to say to you, Mr. Stone. When you sold out to these people, I hope you made them pay you well."

The detective flushed, but he had no chance to reply.

"This is no time for levity, Miss West!" Blake said sharply. "Now you see your predicament. Now you see what sort of testimony your libel is built upon."

"But my libel is not built upon that testimony."

"Not built——" He now first observed that Katherine was smiling. "What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. That my story is not based on Mr. Stone's testimony."

There were exclamations from Mr. Brown and Blind Charlie.

"Eh—what?" said Blake. "But you hired Stone as a detective?"

"And he was eminently successful in carrying out the purpose for which I hired him. That purpose was to be watched, and bought off, by you."

Blake sank back and stared at her.

"Then your story is based——"

"Partly on the testimony of Doctor Sherman," she said.

Blake came slowly up to his feet.

"Doctor Sherman?" he breathed.

"Yes, of Doctor Sherman."

Blind Charlie moved quickly forward.

"What's that?" he cried.

"It's not true!" burst from Blake's lips. "Doctor Sherman is in Canada!"

"When I saw him two hours ago he was at his wife's bedside."

"It's not true!" Blake huskily repeated.

"And I might add, Mr. Blake," Katherine pursued, "that he made a full statement of everything—everything!—and that he gave me a signed confession."

Blake stared at her blankly. A sickly pallor was creeping over his face.

Katherine stood up.

"And I might furthermore add, gentlemen," she went on, now also addressing Blind Charlie, "that I know all about the water-works deal, and the secret agreement among you."

"Hold on! You're going too far!" the old politician cried savagely. "You've got no evidence against me!"

"I could hardly help having it, since I was present at your proceedings."

"You?"

"Personally and by proxy. I am the agent of Mr. Seymour of New York. Mr. Hartsell here, otherwise Mr. Manning, has represented me, and has turned over to me the agreement you signed to-day."

They whirled about upon Manning, who continued unperturbed in his chair.

"What she says is straight, gentlemen," he said. "I have only been acting for Miss West."

A horrible curse fell from the thick, loose lips of Blind Charlie Peck. Blake, his sickly pallor deepening, stared from Manning to Katherine.

"It isn't so! It can't be so!" he breathed wildly.

"If you want to see just what I've got, here it is," said Katherine, and she tossed the bundle of proofs upon the desk.

Blake seized the sheets in feverish hands. Blind Charlie stepped to his side, and Mr. Brown slipped forward out of his corner and peered over their shoulders. First they saw the two facsimiles, then their eyes swept in the leading points of Billy Harper's fiery story. Then a low cry escaped from Blake. He had come upon Billy Harper's great page-wide headline:

"BLAKE CONSPIRES TO SWINDLE WESTVILLE; DIRECT CAUSE OF CITY'S SICK AND DEAD."

At that Blake collapsed into his chair and gazed with ashen face at the black, accusing letters. This relentless summary of the situation appalled them all into a moment's silence.

Blind Charlie was the first to speak.

"That paper must never come out!" he shouted.

Blake raised his gray-hued face.

"How are you going to stop it?"

"Here's how," cried Peck, his one eye ablaze with fierce energy. "That crowd at the Square is still all for you, Blake. Don't let the girl out of the house! I'll rush to the Square, rouse the mob properly, and they'll raid the office, rip up the presses, plates, paper, every damned thing!"

"No—no—I'll not stand for that!" Blake burst out.

But Blind Charlie had already started quickly away. Not so quickly, however, but that the very sufficient hand of Manning was about his wrist before he reached the door.

"I guess we won't be doing that to-night, Mr. Peck," Manning said quietly.

The old politician stood shaking with rage and erupting profanity. But presently this subsided, and he stood, as did the others, gazing down at Blake. Blake sat in his chair, silent, motionless, with scarcely a breath, his eyes fixed on the headline. His look was as ghastly as a dead man's, a look of utter ruin, of ruin so terrible and complete that his dazed mind could hardly comprehend it.

There was a space of profound silence in the room. But after a time Blind Charlie's face grew malignantly, revengefully jocose.

"Well, Blake," said he, "I guess this won't hurt me much after all. I guess I haven't much reputation to lose. But as for you, who started this business—you the pure, moral, high-minded reformer——"

He interrupted himself by raising a hand.

"Listen!"

Faintly, from the direction of the Square, came the dim roar of cheering, and then the outburst of the band. Blind Charlie, with a cynical laugh, clapped a hand upon Blake's shoulder.

"Don't you hear 'em, Blake? Brace up! The people still are for you!"

Blake did not reply. The old man bent down, his face now wholly hard.

"And anyhow, Blake, I'm getting this satisfaction out of the business. I've had it in for you for a dozen years, and now you're going to get it good and plenty! Good night and to hell with you!"

Blake did not look up. Manning slipped an arm through the old man's.

"I'll go along with you for a little while," said Manning quietly. "Just to see that you don't start any trouble."

As the pair were going out Mr. Brown, who had thus far not said a single word, bent his fatherly figure over Blake.

"Of course, you realize, Mr. Blake, that our relations are necessarily at an end," he said in a low voice.

"Of course," Blake said dully.

"I'm very sorry we cannot help you, but of course you realize we cannot afford to be involved in a mess like this. Good night." And he followed the others out, Old Hosie behind him.

For a space Katherine stood alone, gazing down upon Blake's bowed and silent figure. Now that it was all over, now that his allies had all deserted him, to see this man whom she had known as so proud, so strong, so admired, with such a boundless future—who had once been her own ideal of a great man—who had once declared himself her lover—to see this man now brought so low, stirred in her a strange emotion, in which there was something of pity, something of sympathy, and a tugging remembrance of the love he long ago had offered.

But the noise of the front door closing upon the men recalled her to herself, and very softly, so as not to disturb him, she started away. Her hand was on the knob, when there sounded a dry and husky voice from behind her.

"Wait, Katherine! Wait!"



CHAPTER XXVI

AN IDOL'S FALL

She turned. Blake had risen from his chair.

"What is it?" she asked.

He came up to her, the proofs still in his hands. He was unsteady upon his feet, like a man dizzy from a heavy blow. The face which she had been accustomed to see only as full of poise and strength and dignity was now supremely haggard. When he spoke he spoke in uttermost despair—huskily, chokingly, yet with an effort at control.

"Do you know what this is going to do to me?" he asked, holding out the proof-sheets.

"Yes," she said.

"It is going to ruin me—reputation, fortune, future! Everything!"

She did not answer him.

"Yes, that is going to be the result," he continued in his slow, husky voice. "Only one thing can save me."

"And that?"

He stared at her for a moment with wildly burning eyes. Then he wet his dry lips.

"That is for you to countermand this extra."

"You ask me to do that?"

"It is my only chance. I do."

"I believe you are out of your mind!" she cried.

"I believe I am!" he said hoarsely.

"Think just a moment, and you will see that what you ask is quite impossible. Just think a moment."

He was silent for a time. A tremor ran through him, his body stiffened.

"No, I do not ask it," he said. "I am not trying to excuse myself now, but when a thing falls so unexpectedly, so suddenly——" A choking at the throat stopped him. "If I have seemed to whimper, I take it back. You have beaten me, Katherine. But I hope I can take defeat like a man."

She did not answer.

They continued gazing at one another. In the silence of the great house they could hear each other's agitated breathing. Into his dark face, now turned so gray, there crept a strange, drawn look—a look that sent a tingling through all her body.

"What is it?" she asked.

"To think," he exclaimed in a low, far-away voice, almost to himself, "that I have lost everything through you! Through you, through whom I might have gained everything!"

"Gained everything? Through me?" she repeated. "How?"

"I am sure I would have kept out of such things—as this—if, five years ago, you had said 'yes' instead of 'no'."

"Said yes?" she breathed.

"I think you would have kept me in the straight road. For I would not have dared to fall below your standards. For I"—he drew a deep, convulsive breath—"for I loved you, Katherine, better than anything in all the world!"

She trembled at the intensity of his voice.

"You loved me—like that?"

"Yes. And since I have lost you, and lost everything, there is perhaps no harm in my telling you something else. Only on that one night did I open my lips about love to you—but I have loved you through all the years since then. And ... and I still love you."

"You still love me?" she whispered.

"I still love you."

She stared at him.

"And yet all these months you have fought against me!"

"I have not fought against you," he said. "Somehow, I got started in this way, and I have fought to win—have fought against exposure, against defeat."

"And you still love me?" she murmured, still amazed.

As she gazed at him there shot into her a poignant pang of pity for this splendid figure, tottering on the edge of the abyss. For an instant she thought only of him.

"You asked me a moment ago to suppress the paper," she cried impulsively. "Shall I do it?"

"I now ask nothing," said he.

"No—no—I can't suppress the paper!" she said in anguish. "That would be to leave father disgraced, and Mr. Bruce disgraced, and the city——But what are you going to do?"

"I do not know. This has come so suddenly. I have had no time to think."

"You must at least have time to think! If you had an hour—two hours?"

There was a momentary flash of hope in his eyes.

"If I had an hour——"

"Then we'll delay the paper!" she cried.

She sprang excitedly to the telephone upon Blake's desk. The next instant she had Billy Harper on the wire, Blake watching her, motionless in his tracks.

"Mr. Harper," she said, "it is now half-past ten. I want you to hold the paper back till eleven-thirty.... What's that?"

She listened for a moment, then slowly hung up the receiver. She did not at once turn round, but when she did her face was very white.

"Well?" Blake asked.

"I'm sorry," she said, barely above a whisper. "The paper has been upon the street for ten minutes."

They gazed at one another for several moments, both motionless, both without a word. Then thin, sharp cries penetrated the room. Blake's lips parted.

"What is that?" he asked mechanically.

Katherine crossed and raised a window. Through it came shrill, boyish voices:

"Extry! Extry! All about the great Blake conspiracy!"

These avant couriers of Blake's disgrace sped onward down the avenue. Katherine turned slowly back to Blake. He still stood in the same posture, leaning heavily upon an arm that rested on his mahogany desk. He did not speak. Nor was there anything that Katherine could say.

It was for but a moment or two that they stood in this strained silence. Then a dim outcry sounded from the centre of the town. In but a second, it seemed, this outcry had mounted to a roar.

"It is the crowd—at the Square," said Blake, in a dry whisper.

"Yes."

"The extra—they have seen it."

The roar rose louder—louder. It was like the thunder of an on-rushing flood that has burst its dam. It began to separate into distinct cries, and the shuffle of running feet.

"They are coming this way," said Blake in his same dry, mechanical tone.

There was no need for Katherine to reply. The fact was too apparent. She moved to the open window, and stood there waiting. The roar grew nearer—nearer. In but a moment, it seemed to her, the front of this human flood appeared just beyond her own house. The next moment the crowd began to pour into Blake's wide lawn—by the hundreds—by the thousands. Many of them still carried in clenched hands crumpled copies of the Express. Here and there, luridly illuminating the wild scene, blazed a smoking torch of a member of the Blake Marching Club. And out of the mouths of this great mob, which less than a short hour before had lauded him to the stars—out of the mouths of these his erewhile idolaters, came the most fearful imprecations, the most fearful cries for vengeance.

Katherine became aware that Blake was standing behind her gazing down upon this human storm. She turned, and in his pallid face she plainly read the passionate regret that was surging through his being. His had been the chance to serve these people, and serve them with honour to himself—honour that hardly had a limit. And now he had lost them, lost them utterly and forever, and with them had lost everything!

Some one below saw his face at the window and swore shriekingly to have his life. Blake drew quickly back and stood again beside his desk. He was white—living flesh could not be more white—but he still maintained that calm control which had succeeded his first desperate consternation.

"What are you going to do?" Katherine asked.

He very quietly drew out a drawer of his desk and picked up a pistol.

"What!" she cried. "You are not going to fight them off!"

"No. I have injured enough of them already," he replied in his measured tone. "Keep all this from my mother as long as you can—at least till she is stronger."

As she saw his intention Katherine sprang forward and caught the weapon he was turning upon himself.

"No! No! You must not do that!"

"But I must," he returned quietly. "Listen!"

The cries without had grown more violent. The heavy front door was resounding with blows.

"Don't you see that this is the only thing that's left?" he asked.

"And don't you see," she said rapidly, "its effect upon your mother? In her weakened condition, your death will be her death. You just said you had injured enough already. Do you want to kill one more? And besides, and in spite of all," she added with a sudden fire, "there's a big man in you! Face it like that man!"

He hesitated. Then he relaxed his hold upon the pistol, still without speaking. Katherine returned it to its place and closed the drawer.

At this instant Old Hosie, who had been awaiting Katherine below, rushed excitedly into the library.

"Don't you know hell's broke loose?" he cried to Katherine. "They'll have that front door down in a minute! Come on!"

But Katherine could not take her gaze from Blake's pale, set face.

"What are you going to do?" she asked again.

"What is he going to do?" exclaimed Old Hosie. "Better ask what that mob is going to do. Listen to them!"

A raging cry for Blake's life ascended, almost deafening their ears.

"No, no—they must not do that!" exclaimed Katherine, and breathlessly she darted from the room.

Old Hosie looked grimly at Blake.

"You deserve it, Blake. But I'm against mob law. Quick, slip out the back way. You can just catch the eleven o'clock express and get out of the State."

Without waiting to see the effect of his advice Old Hosie hurried after Katherine. She had reached the bottom of the stairway just as cooperated shoulders crashed against the door and made it shiver on its hinges. Her intention was to go out and speak to the crowd, but to open the front door was to admit and be overwhelmed by the maddened mob. She knew the house almost as well as she knew her own, and she recalled that the dining-room had a French window which opened upon the piazza on the side away from the crowd. She ran back through the darkened rooms, swung open this window and ran about the piazza to the front door. As she reached it, the human battering-ram drew back for another infuriated lunge.

She sprang between the men and the door.

"Stop! Stop!" she cried.

"What the hell's this!" ejaculated the leader of the assault.

"Say, if it ain't a woman!" cried a member of the battering-ram.

"Out of the way with you!" roared the leader in a fury.

But she placed her back against the door.

"Stop—men! Give me just one word!"

"Better stop this, boys!" gasped a man at the foot of the steps, struggling in half a dozen pairs of arms. "I warn you! It's against the law!"

"Shut up, Jim Nichols; this is our business!" cried the leader to the helpless sheriff. "And now, you"—turning again to Katherine—"out of the way!"

The seething, torch-lit mob on the lawn below repeated his cry. The leader, his wrath increasing, seized Katherine roughly by the arm and jerked her aside:

"Now, all together, boys!" he shouted.

But at that instant upon the front of the mob there fell a tall, lean fury with a raging voice and a furiously swinging cane. It was Old Hosie. Before this fierce chastisement, falling so suddenly upon their heads, the battering-ram for a moment pressed backward.

"You fools! You idiots!" the old man cried, and his high, sharp voice cut through all the noises of the mob. "Is that the way you treat the woman that saved you!"

"Saved us?" some one shouted incredulously. "Her save us?"

"Yes, saved you!" Old Hosie cried in a rising voice down upon the heads of the crowd. His cane had ceased its flailing; the crowd had partially ceased its uproar. "Do you know who that woman is? She's Katherine West!"

"Oh, the lady lawyer!" rose several jeering voices.

For the moment Old Hosie's tall figure, with his cane outstretched, had the wrathful majesty of a prophet of old, denouncing his foolish and reprobate people.

"Go on, all of you, laugh at her to-night!" he shouted. "But after to-night you'll all slink around Westville, ashamed to look anything in the face higher than a dog! For half a year you've been sneering at Katherine West. And see how she's paid you back! It was she that found out your enemy. It was she that dug up all the facts and evidence you've read in those papers there. It was she that's saved you from being robbed. And now——"

"She done all that?" exclaimed a voice from the now stilled mob.

"Yes, she done all that!" shouted Old Hosie. "And what's more, she got out that paper in your hands. While you've been sneering at her, she's been working for you. And now, after all this, you're not even willing to listen to a word from her!" His voice rose in its contemptuous wrath still one note higher. "And now listen to me! I'm going to tell you exactly what you are! You are all——"

But Westville never learned exactly what it was. Just then Old Hosie was firmly pulled back by the tails of his Prince Albert coat and found himself in the possession of the panting, dishevelled sheriff of Galloway County.

"You've made your point, Hosie," said Jim Nichols. "They'll listen to her now."

Katherine stepped forward into the space Old Hosie had involuntarily vacated. With the torchlights flaring up into her face she stood there breathing deeply, awed into momentary silence by the great crowd and by the responsibility that weighed upon her.

"If, as Mr. Hollingsworth has said," she began in a tremulous but clear voice that carried to the farthest confines of the lawn, "you owe me anything, all I ask in return is that you refrain from mob violence;" and she went on to urge upon them the lawful course. The crowd, taken aback by the accusations and revelations Old Hosie had flung so hotly into their faces, strangely held by her impassioned woman's figure pedestalled above them on the porch, listened to her with an attention and respect which they as yet were far from understanding.

She felt that she had won her audience, that she had turned them back to lawful measures, when suddenly there was a roar of "Blake! Blake!"—the stilled crowd became again a mob—and she saw that the focus of their gaze had shifted from her to a point behind her. Looking about, she saw that the door had opened, and that Blake, pale and erect, was standing in the doorway. The crowd tried to surge forward, but the front ranks, out of their new and but half-comprehended respect for Katherine, stood like a wall against the charge that would have overwhelmed her.

Blake moved forward to her side.

"I should like to speak to them, if I can," he said quietly.

Katherine held up her hand for silence. The mob hissed and cursed him, and tried to break through the human fortification of the front ranks. Through it all Blake stood silent, pale, without motion. Katherine, her hand still upraised, continued to cry out for silence; and after a time the uproar began in a measure to diminish.

Katherine took quick advantage of the lull.

"Gentlemen," she called out, "won't you please give Mr. Blake just a word!"

Cries that they should give him a chance to speak ran through the crowd, and thus abjured by its own members the mob quieted yet further. While they were subsiding into order Blake looked steadily out upon this sea of hostile faces. Katherine watched him breathlessly, wondering what he was about to say. It swept in upon her, with a sudden catching of the throat, that he made a fine figure standing there so straight, so white, with so little sign of fear; and despite what the man had done, again some of her old admiration for him thrilled through her, and with it an infinite pang of regret for what he might have been.

At length there was moderate order, and Blake began to speak. "Gentlemen, I do not wish to plead for myself," he said quietly, yet in his far-carrying voice. "What I have done is beyond your forgiveness. I merely desire to say that I am guilty; to say that I am here to give myself into your hands. Do with me as you think best. If you prefer immediate action, I shall go with you without resistance. If you wish to let the law take its course, then"—here he made a slight gesture toward Jim Nichols, who stood beside him—"then I shall give myself into the hands of the sheriff. I await your choice."

With that he paused. A perfect hush had fallen on the crowd. This man who had dominated them in the days of his glory, dominated them for at least a flickering moment in this the hour of his fall. For that brief moment all were under the spell of their habit to honour him, the spell of his natural dignity, the spell of his direct words.

Then the spell was over. The storm broke loose again. There were cries for immediate action, and counter cries in favour of the law. The two cries battled with each other. For a space there was doubt as to which was the stronger. Then that for the law rose louder and louder and drowned the other out.

Sheriff Nichols slipped his arm through Blake's.

"I guess you're going to come with me," he said.

"I am ready," was Blake's response.

He turned about to Katherine.

"You deserved to win," he said quietly. "Thank you. Good-by."

"Good-by," said she.

The sheriff drew him away. Katherine, panting, leaning heavily against a pillar of the porch, watched the pair go down the steps—watched the great crowd part before them—watched them march through this human alley-way, lighted by smoking campaign torches—watched them till they had passed into the darkness in the direction of the jail. Then she dizzily reached out and caught Old Hosie's arm.

"Help me home," she said weakly. "I—I feel sick."



CHAPTER XXVII

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

It was the following night, and the hour was nine. Old Hosie stood in the sheriff's office in Galloway County jail, while Jim Nichols scrutinized a formal looking document his visitor had just delivered into his hands.

"It's all right, isn't it?" said the old lawyer.

"Yep." The sheriff thrust the paper into a drawer. "I'll fetch him right down."

"Remember, don't give him a hint!" Old Hosie warned again. "You're sure," he added anxiously, "he hasn't got on to anything?"

"How many more times have I got to tell you," returned the sheriff, a little irritated, "that I ain't said a word to him—just as you told me! He heard some of the racket last night, sure. But he thought it was just part of the regular campaign row."

"All right! All right! Hurry him along then!"

Left alone, Old Hosie walked excitedly up and down the dingy room, whose sole pretension in an aesthetic way was the breeze-blown "yachting girl" of a soap company's calendar, sailing her bounding craft above the office cuspidor.

The old man grinned widely, rubbed his bony hands together, and a concatenation of low chuckles issued from his lean throat. But when Sheriff Nichols reappeared, ushering in Arnold Bruce, all these outward manifestations of satisfaction abruptly terminated, and his manner became his usual dry and sarcastic one with his nephew.

"Hello, Arn!" he said. "H'are you?"

"Hello!" Bruce returned, rather gruffly, shaking the hand his uncle held out. "What's this the sheriff has just told me about a new trial?"

"It's all right," returned Old Hosie. "We've fought on till we've made 'em give it to us."

"What's the use of it?" Bruce growled. "The cards will be stacked the same as at the other trial."

"Well, whatever happens, you're free till then. I've got you out on bail, and I'm here to take you home with me. So come along with you."

Old Hosie pushed him out and down the jail steps and into a closed carriage that was waiting at the curb. Bruce was in a glowering, embittered mood, as was but natural in a man who keenly feels that he has suffered without justice and has lost all for which he fought.

"You know I appreciate your working for the new trial," he remarked dully, as the carriage rattled slowly on. "How did you manage it?"

"It's too long a story for now. I'll tell you when we get home."

Bruce was gloomily silent for a moment.

"Of course the Blake crowd swept everything at the election to-day?"

"Well, on the whole, their majority wasn't as big as they'd counted on," returned Old Hosie.

They rode on, Bruce sunk in his bitter, rebellious dejection. The carriage turned into the street that ran behind the Court House, then after rattling over the brick pavement for a few moments came to a pause. Hosie opened the door and stepped out.

"Hello! what are we stopping here for?" demanded Bruce. "This is the Court House. I thought you said we were going home?"

"So we are, so we are," Old Hosie rapidly returned, an agitation in his manner that he could not wholly repress. "But first we've got to go into the Court House. Judge Kellog is waiting for us; there's a little formality or two about your release we've got to settle with him. Come along." And taking his arm Old Hosie hurried him into the Court House yard, allowing no time for questioning the plausibility of this explanation.

But suddenly Bruce stopped short.

"Look at that, won't you!" he cried in amazement. "See how the front of the yard is lighted up, and see how it's jammed with people! And there goes the band! What the dickens——"

At that moment some one on the outskirts of the crowd sighted the pair. "There's Bruce!" he shouted.

Immediately there was an uproar. "Hurrah for Bruce! Hurrah for Bruce!" yelled the crowd, and began to rush to the rear of the yard, cheering as they ran.

Bruce gripped Old Hosie's arm.

"What's this mean?"

"It means we've got to run for it!" And so saying the old man, with a surprising burst of speed left over from his younger years, dragged his nephew up the walk and through the rear door of the Court House, which he quickly locked upon their clamorous pursuers.

Bruce stared at his uncle in bewilderment.

"Hosie—Hosie—what's this mean?"

The old man's leathery face was twitching in a manner remarkable to behold.

"Drat it," he grumbled, with a quaver in his voice, "why don't you read the Express and keep up with the news!"

"What's this mean?" demanded Bruce.

"Well, here's a copy of your old rag. Read it and see for yourself."

Bruce seized the Express the old man held out to him. Up in one corner were the words "Election Extra," and across the top of the page ran the great headline:

"BRUCE TICKET SWEEPS CITY"

Bruce looked slowly up, stupefied, and steadied himself with a hand against the door.

"Is—is that true?"

"For my part," declared Old Hosie, the quaver in his voice growing more prominent, "I don't believe more'n half I see in that dirty sheet!"

"Then—it's true?"

"Don't you hear them wild Indians yelling for Mayor Bruce?"

Bruce was too dazed to speak for a moment.

"Tell me—how did it happen?"

"Oh, read your old rag and see!"

"For God's sake, Hosie, don't fool with me!" he cried. "How did it happen? Somebody has been at work. Who did it?"

"Eh! You really want to know that?"

"Yes, yes! Who did it?"

"It was done," said Old Hosie, looking at him very straight and blinking his eyes, "by a party that I understand you thought couldn't do much of anything."

"But who? Who?"

"If you really want to know, the party's name is Miss Katherine West."

Bruce's stupefaction outdid itself.

"Katherine West!" he repeated.

Old Hosie could maintain his role no longer.

"Yes, Katherine West!" he burst out in triumphant joy, his words tumbling over one another. "She did it all—every bit of it! And that mob out in front is there to celebrate your election. We knew how things were going to turn out, so we were safe in getting this thing ready in advance. And I don't mind telling you, young fellow, that this celebration is just as much for her as it is for you. The town has simply gone crazy about her and is looking for a chance to kiss her feet. She said she wouldn't come to-night, but we all insisted. I promised to bring her, and I've got to be off. So good-by!"

Bruce caught his arm.

"Wait, Hosie! Tell me what she did! Tell me the rest!"

"Read that paper I gave you! And here, I brought this for you, too." He took from his inside pocket a copy of the extra Katherine and Billy Harper had got out the night before. "Those two papers will tell you all there is to tell. And now," he continued, opening a door and pushing Bruce through it, "you just wait in there so I'll know where to find you when I want you. I've got to hustle for a while, for I'm master of ceremonies of this show. How's that for your old uncle? It's the first time I've ever been connected with a popular movement in my life except to throw bricks at it, and I ain't so sure I can stand popularity for one whole night."

With that he was gone. Bruce recognized the room into which he had been thrust as the court room in which he had been tried and sentenced, in which Katherine had pleaded her father's case. Over the judge's desk, as though in expectation of his coming, a green-shaded drop lamp shed its cone of light. Bruce stumbled forward to the desk, sank into the judge's chair, and began feverishly to devour the two copies of his paper.

Billy Harper, penitently sober and sworn to sobriety for all his days, had outdone himself on that day's issue. He told how the voters crowded to the polls in their eagerness to vote for Bruce, and he gave with a tremendous exultation an estimate of Bruce's majority, which was so great as to be an almost unanimous election. Also he told how Blind Charlie Peck had prudently caught last night's eleven o'clock express and was now believed to be repairing his health down at Hot Springs, Arkansas. Also he gave a deal of inside history: told how the extra had been gotten out the night before, with the Blake mass-meeting going on beneath the Express's windows; told of the scene at the home of Blake, and Blake's strange march to jail; and, freed from the restraint of Katherine's presence, who would have forbidden him, he told with a world of praise the story of how she had worked up the case.

The election extra finished, Bruce spread open the extra of the night before, the paper that had transferred him from a prison cell to the mayor's office, and read the mass of Katherine's evidence that Billy had so stirringly set forth. Then the head of the editor of the Express, of the mayor of Westville, sank forward into his folded arms and he sat bowed, motionless, upon the judge's desk.

A great outburst of cheering from the crowd, though louder far than those that had preceded it, did not disturb him; and he did not look up until he heard the door of the court room open. Then he saw that Old Hosie had entered, and with him Katherine.

"I'll just leave you two for a minute," Old Hosie said rapidly, "while I go out and start things going by introducing the Honourable Hiram Cogshell."

With that the old man took the arm of Katherine's father, who had been standing just behind, slipped through the door and was gone. A moment later, from in front, there arose a succession of cheers for Doctor West.

Bruce came slowly down from behind the railing of Judge Kellog's desk and paused before Katherine. She was very white, her breath came with a tremulous irregularity, and she looked at him with wide, wondering, half-fearful eyes.

At first Bruce could not get out a word, such a choking was there in his throat, such a throbbing and whirling through all his being. He dizzily supported himself with a hand upon the back of a bench, and stood and gazed at her.

It was she that broke the silence.

"Mr. Hollingsworth did not tell me—you were here. I'd better go." And she started for the door.

"No—no—don't!" he said. He drew a step nearer her. "I've just read"—holding up the two papers—"what you have done."

"Mr. Harper has—has exaggerated it very much," she returned. Her voice seemed to come with as great a difficulty as his own.

"And I have read," he continued, "how much I owe you."

"It's—it's——" She did not finish in words, but a gesture disclaimed all credit.

"It has made me. And I want to thank you, and I do thank you. And I do thank you," he repeated lamely.

She acknowledged his gratitude with an inclination of her head. Motions came easier than words.

"And since I owe it all to you, since I owe nothing to any political party, I want to tell you that I am going to try to make the very best mayor that I can!"

"I am sure of that," she said.

"I realize that it's not going to be easy," he went on. "The people seem to be with me now, thanks to you—but as soon as I try to carry out my ideas, I know that both parties will rise up and unite against me. The big fight is still ahead. But since—since you have done it all—I want you to know that I am going to fight straight ahead for the people, no matter what happens to me."

"I know," she said.

"My eyes have been opened to many things about politics," he added.

She did not speak.

Silence fell between them; the room was infiltered by a multitudinous hum from without. Presently the thought, and with it the fear, that had been rising up stronger and stronger in Bruce for the last half hour, forced itself through his lips.

"I suppose that now—you'll be going back to New York?"

"No. I have had several cases offered me to-day. I am going to stay in Westville."

"Oh!" he said—and was conscious of a dizzy relief. Then, "I wish you success."

"Thank you."

Again there was a brief silence, both standing and looking in constraint at one another.

"This celebration is very trying, isn't it?" she said. "I suppose we might sit down while we wait."

"Yes."

They each took the end of a different bench, and rather stiffly sat gazing into the shadowy severity of the big room. Sounding from the front of the Court House they heard rather vaguely the deep-chested, sonorous rhetoric of the Honourable Hiram.

But they heard it for but an instant. Suddenly the court room door flew open and Old Hosie marched straight up before them.

"You're the dad-blastedest pair of idiots I ever saw!" he burst out, with an exasperation that was not an entire success, for it was betrayed by a little quaver.

They stood up.

"What's the matter?" stammered Bruce.

"Matter?" cried Old Hosie. "What d'you suppose I left you two people here together for?"

"You said you had to start——"

"Well, couldn't I have another and a bigger reason? I've been listening outside the door here, and the way you people have acted! See here, you two know you love one another, and yet you act toward each other like a pair of tame icebergs that have just been introduced!"

He turned in a fury upon his nephew, blinking to keep the moisture from his eyes.

"Don't you love her?" he demanded, pointing to Katherine, who had suddenly grown yet more pale.

"Why—yes—yes——"

"Then why in the name of God don't you tell her so?"

"I'm—I'm afraid she won't care to hear it," stammered Bruce, not daring to look at Katherine.

"Tell her so, and see what she says," shouted Old Hosie. "How else are you going to find out? Tell her what a fool you've been. Tell her she's proved to you you're all wrong about what you thought she ought to do. Tell her unless you get some one of sense to help run you, you're going to make an all-fired mess of this mayor's job. Tell her"—there was a choking in his voice—"oh, boy, just tell her what you feel!

"And now," he added quickly, and again sharply, "that mob outside won't listen to the Honourable Hiram much longer. They want you folks. I give you just two minutes to fix things up. Two minutes—no more!"

And pulling his high hat down upon his forehead, Old Hosie turned abruptly and again left the room.

Bruce looked slowly about upon Katherine. His rugged, powerful face was working with emotion.

"What Uncle Hosie has said is all true," he stammered fearfully. "You know I love you, Katherine. And there isn't anything you'll want to do that I'll not be glad to have you do. Won't you forget, Katherine, and won't you—won't you——"

He stretched out his arms to her. "Oh, Katherine!" he cried. "I love you! I want you! I need you!"

While he spoke her face had grown radiant. "And I—and I"—she choked, then her voice went on with an uprush of happiness—"and I—oh, Arnold, I need you!"

* * * * *

When Old Hosie reentered a minute later and saw what there was to be seen, he let out a little cry of joy and swooped down upon them.

"Look out, Katherine," he warned, quaveringly, "for I'm going to kiss you!" But despite this warning the old man succeeded in his enterprise. "This is great!—great!" he cried, shaking a hand of each. "But we'll have to cut this hallelujah business short till that little picnic outside is over. I just pulled the Honourable Hiram down—and, say, just listen to that roar!"

A roar it was indeed. Of a bursting brass band, of thousands of eager people.

"And who do you suppose they're shouting for?" inquired the joyous Hosie.

Katherine smiled a tear-bright smile at Bruce.

"For the new mayor," she said.

"No, no! All for you!" said he.

"Well, come on and we'll see who it's for!" cried Old Hosie.

And taking an arm of each he led them out to face the cheering multitude.

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY. N. Y.



TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.