of your interest in
the city. But there is another reason--it would help you in your
larger ambition. If you could disclose this scheme, save the city,
become the hero of a great popular gratitude, think how it would help
your senatorial chances!"

He did not at once reply, but sat staring at her.

"Don't you see?" she cried.

"I--I see."

"Why, it would turn your chance for the Senate into a certainty! It
would--but, Mr. Blake, what's the matter?"

"Matter," he repeated, huskily. "Why--why nothing."

She gazed at him with deep concern. "But you look almost sick."

In his eyes there struggled a wild look. Her gaze became fixed upon
his face, so strangely altered. In her present high-wrought state all
her senses were excited to their intensest keenness.

There was a moment of silence--eyes into eyes. Then she stood slowly
up, and one hand reached slowly out and clutched his arm.

"Mr. Blake!" she whispered, in an awed and terrified tone. She
continued to stare into his eyes. "Mr. Blake!" she repeated.

She felt a tensing of his body, as of a man who seeks to master
himself with a mighty effort. He tried to smile, though his greenish
pallor did not leave him.

"It is my turn," he said, "to ask what is the matter with you,
Katherine."

"Mr. Blake!" She loosed her hold upon his arm, and shrank away.

He rose.

"What is the matter?" he repeated. "You seem upset. I suppose it is
the nervous strain of to-morrow's trial."

In her face was stupefied horror.

"It is what--what I have discovered."

"What you call your discovery would be most valuable, if true. But it
is just a dream, Katherine--a crazy, crazy dream."

She still was looking straight into his eyes.

"Mr. Blake, it is true," she said slowly, almost breathlessly. "For I
have found the man behind the plan."

"Indeed! And who?"

"I think you know him, Mr. Blake."

"I?"

"Better than any one else."

His smile had left him.

"Who?"

She continued to stare at him for a moment in silence. Then she slowly
raised her arm and pointed at him.

The silence continued for several moments, each gazing at the other.
He had put one hand upon his desk and was leaning heavily upon it. He
looked like a man sick unto death. But soon a shiver ran through him;
he swallowed, gripped himself in a strong control, and smiled again
his strained, unnatural smile.

"Katherine, Katherine," he tried to say it reprovingly and
indulgently, but there was a quav