was not, Mayor Packard."

"I must see her. I came as soon as I could. Left Warner to fill my place
on the platform, and it is the night of nights, too. Why, what's the
matter?"

He had caught me staring over his shoulder at the form drawn up in the
doorway.

"Nothing; I thought you had come alone."

"No, Mr. Steele is with me. He joined me at noon, just after I had
telegraphed home. He has come back to finish the work I assigned him.
He has at last discovered--or thinks he has--the real author of those
libels. You have something special to say to me?" he whispered, as I
followed him upstairs.

"Yes, and I think, if I were you, that I should say nothing to Mrs.
Packard about Mr. Steele's having returned." And I rapidly detailed the
occurrence of the afternoon, ending with Mrs. Packard's explanation to
her servants.

The mayor showed impatience. "Oh, I can not bother with such nonsense as
that," he declared; "the situation is too serious."

I thought so, too, when in another moment his wife's door opened and she
stepped out upon the landing to meet him. Her eyes fell on Mr. Steele,
standing at the foot of the stairs, before they encountered her husband;
and though she uttered no cry and hardly paused in her approach toward
the mayor, I saw the heart within her die as suddenly and surely as the
flame goes out in a gust of wind.

"You!" There was hysteria in the cry. Pray God that the wild note in it
was not that of incipient insanity! "How good of you to give up making
your great speech to-night, just to see how I have borne this last
outrage! You do see, don't you?" Here she drew her form to its full
height. "My husband believes in me, and it gives me courage to face the
whole world. Ah! is that Mr. Steele I see below there? Pardon me, Mr.
Steele, if I show surprise. We heard a false report of your illness this
afternoon. Henry, hadn't Mr. Steele better come up-stairs? I presume you
are here to talk over this last dreadful paragraph with me."

"It is not necessary for Mr. Steele to join us if you do not wish him
to," I heard the mayor whisper in his wife's ear.

"Oh, I do not mind," she returned with an indifference whose reality I
probably gauged more accurately than he did.

"That is good." And he called Mr. Steele up. "You see she is reasonable
enough," he muttered in my ear as he motioned me to follow them into the
up-stairs sitting-room to which she had led the way. "The more heads the
better in a discu