t promise me, promise
me, that you'll do your best to think of me as doing what I believed was
right."

"I'm bewildered, but you have my promise," she answered.

The clock on the mantel above the fireplace chimed midnight. He rose.

"I have been thoughtless," he said. "I had forgotten the time."

She walked with him to the door.

"Good-night," he said, "and thank you."

"Good-night," she said, dropping the hand she had given him to her side.

He strode out into the night. Subconsciously he waited for the door to
close behind him. Each step took him farther toward the street and yet
he did not hear the click of the latch.

At the sidewalk he turned to look back.

She was standing, framed in the soft light shining through the doorway,
looking out at him. He waved his hand. He saw her hand flutter and then
the door closed.

"'Still my heart has wings,'" he repeated to himself as he turned away.

* * * * *

The primary election was only two weeks away. Gibson, with the powerful
combination of organizations behind him, was swinging into the final lap
of his campaign with unabated success. That he would snow the mayor
under at the primary was conceded everywhere. Facing humiliation in the
most decisive defeat in the history of the city the mayor's organization
dwindled down to a few never-say-die supporters whose activities were
almost laughable in the prospect of Gibson's overwhelming victory at the
polls. To the list of organizations indorsing the police commissioner
was added the Anti-Saloon league.

Seeking corroboration of the story told them by "Big Jim" Hatch, which
they had in affidavit form from "Big Jim" and Mrs. Hatch, John and
Brennan visited the downtown apartment house where "Gink" Cummings
resided and where Hatch claimed to have seen Gibson. Cautiously they
questioned the janitor, the clerk at the desk, the elevator boy and even
the proprietor without success. None of them had ever seen a man
answering Gibson's description enter the building.

"Probably the time Hatch saw Gibson at Cummings' apartment was the only
time Gibson ever visited the 'Gink' there, and, because it was late at
night, no one happened to see him," said Brennan. "It is beginning to
look as though we'll have to tap either Gibson's or Cummings' telephone
if the 'chief' wants to go that far."

Then, late one afternoon, John received a telephone call from Murphy.

"Meet me tonight at Second and