ming unsteadily toward the door. If she opened it--

"I don't want anything, Olga," she called, "I knocked the bell over
accidentally."

Olga hesitated, muttered, moved away again. Elinor was covered with a
cold sweat.

She began to think of the window as a refuge. Surely nothing outside
could be so terrible as this house itself. The black aperture seemed
friendly; it beckoned to her with friendly hands.

She dropped her crutches. They fell with two soft thuds on the earth
below and it seemed to her that they were a long time in falling. She
listened after that, but Olga made no sign. Then slowly and painfully
she worked her injured leg over the sill, and sat there looking down and
breathing with difficulty. Then she freed her dressing gown around her,
and slid over the edge.

CHAPTER XLV

Election night found various groups in various places. In the back room
of the Eagle Pharmacy was gathered once again the neighborhood forum, a
wildly excited forum, which ever and anon pounded Mr. Hendricks on the
back, and drank round after round of soda water and pop. Doctor Smalley,
coming in rather late found them all there, calling Mr. Hendricks "Mr.
Mayor" or "Your Honor," reciting election anecdotes, and prophesying the
end of the Reds. Only Willy Cameron, sitting on a table near the window,
was silent.

Mr. Hendricks, called upon for a speech, rose with his soda water glass
in his hand.

"I've got a toast for you, boys," he said. "You've been talking all
evening about my winning this election. Well, I've been elected, but I
didn't win it. It was the plain people of this town who elected me, and
they did it because my young friend on the table yonder told them to."
He raised his glass. "Cameron!" he said.

"Cameron! Cameron!" shouted the crowd. "Speech! Cameron!"

But Willy shook his head.

"I haven't any voice left," he said, "and you've heard me say all I know
a dozen times. The plain truth is that Mr. Hendricks got the election
because he was the best man, and enough people knew it. That's all."

To Mr. Hendricks the night was one of splendid solemnity. He felt at
once very strong and very weak, very proud and very humble. He would do
his best, and if honesty meant anything, the people would have it, but
he knew that honesty was not enough. The city needed a strong man; he
hoped that the Good Man who made cities as He made men, both evil and
good, would lend him a hand with things. As prayer in his mind