proceeded as if no time had elapsed since his last words.

"You had some words then with this Brainard--I think you called him
Brainard--exacted some promise from him?"

"Yes, your Honor," was the only reply.

Did not Mrs. Packard speak, too? We all seemed to think so, for we
turned toward her; but she gave no evidence of having said anything,
though an increased nervousness was visible in her fingers as she pushed
the matches about.

"I thought I was warranted in doing so much," continued Mr. Steele. "I
could not buy the man with money, so I used threats."

"Right! anything to squelch him," exclaimed the mayor, but not with the
vigor I expected from him. Some doubt, some dread--caught perhaps from
his wife's attitude or expression--seemed to interpose between his
indignation and the object of it. "You are our good friend, Steele, in
spite of the shock you gave us a moment ago."

As no answer was made to this beyond a smile too subtle and too fine to
be understood by his openhearted chief, the mayor proceeded to declare:

"Then that matter is at an end. I pray that it may have done us no real
harm. I do not think it has. People resent attacks on women, especially,
on one whose reputation has never known a shadow, as girl, wife, or
mother."

"Yes," came in slow assent from the lips which had just smiled, and he
glanced at Mrs. Packard whose own lips seemed suddenly to become dry,
for I saw her try to moisten them as her right hand groped about for
something on the tabletop and finally settled on a small paper-weight
which she set down amongst her matches. Was it then or afterward that
I began to have my first real doubt whether some shadow had not fallen
across her apparently unsullied life?

"Yes, you are right," repeated Mr. Steele more energetically. "People
do resent such insinuations against a woman, though I remember one case
where the opposite effect was produced. It was when Collins ran for
supervisor in Cleveland. He was a good fellow himself, and he had a wife
who was all that was beautiful and charming, but who had once risked
her reputation in an act which did call for public arraignment.
Unfortunately, there was a man who knew of this act and he published it
right and left and--"

"Olympia!" Mayor Packard was on his feet, pointing in sudden fury and
suspicion at the table where the matches lay about in odd and, as I now
saw, seemingly set figures. "You are doing something besides playing
with th