"The girl, has she--the reward, has it been promised him?" he asked.

He saw the tinge of crimson steal into her cheeks.

"She--it has," she answered, softly.

"I understand now," he said. "I know now why he faced death the way he
did. What man would not?"

This last he spoke quietly, as if to himself.

"Can you think of him as insincere, as faithless, as selfish, as greedy
for power?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I've told you things that are sacred," she said. "I have told you
because I regard you as a friend. I liked you from the moment we
met----"

"And I said you were beautiful?" he interrupted.

She smiled back to him.

"And you said I was beautiful," she repeated. "But not simply because
you said it, but because I thought you meant it."

"I often wonder how I had courage to say that to you and to tell you I
dreamed of meeting you again," he said. "I have often wondered why you
have been so kind, why you are interested in me at all. At first I
thought it was only--only what you might call pity and I resented it."

"Why is it we have such thoughts?" she said. "Why must we always impute
a misconceived motive?"

"Because deceit has its place in the human heart, I suppose," he said,
and, strangely, he thought of the mayor's regard of Gibson as a
figurehead of hypocritical virtue who sold himself for money. How
terrible it would be if that were true!

As if by mutual unspoken assent they talked of other things, of books,
of plays, of life, until Mrs. Gallant returned, apologizing again for
her absence. A few minutes later the automobile which had brought
Consuello glided up to a halt in front of the house and, glancing at her
wrist watch, she arose.

"I must be going," she said. "It's my turn now to thank you for a
wonderful day, Mrs. Gallant; you will promise to meet father and mother,
won't you?"

"I would be delighted," Mrs. Gallant said.

They escorted her to the waiting automobile. John imagined he saw Mrs.
Sprockett and her husband peering out of the window of the Sprockett
house across the street.

CHAPTER IX

The trust that Consuello reposed in him when she told him of her promise
to marry Gibson, John held inviolable to the extent that he did not
mention it to his mother. It strengthened his belief that Brennan and
the mayor were in error in their suspicion that Gibson was linked with
the notorious "Gink" Cummings and that his clean-up crusade was only
aimed to overthrow