r you."

When they read it, Gertrude's face flushed hotly. "So they think to
force me out, do they?"

"Don't you resign, Miss Van Deusen," said Mary. "We'll stay here and
starve, first. Somebody will find us--some time."

"I've not the slightest intention of resigning," replied the other.
"And how often have I asked you to call me Gertrude? We aren't mayor and
secretary now--or I'd command you to call me by my given name. We are
just two prisoners."

"Then I'll do as you say--if I don't forget--Gertrude," answered Mary.

"I wonder what they are doing down below," said Mary later in the day.

"How many times do you think we've said that this week?" laughed
Gertrude. "We've heard the usual street sounds, and an unusual amount of
bell-ringing--which may or may not have been on our account."

"At least, we haven't heard them toll the bells for us!" interrupted
Mary. "That's something."

"But not a paper, not a line, not a breath from the outside world has
reached up--except the basket of provisions," exclaimed Gertrude,
ruefully.

"And the demand for your resignation," interrupted Mary again.
"Honestly, now, Gertrude, don't you wish at the bottom of your heart,
that you had never gone into politics? That you'd let the office of
mayor go begging last fall?"

Gertrude's face was a study. For an instant her friend thought she was
about to confess that she had made a mistake. Then the old spirit flared
up. Gertrude held her head high.

"I would never own it if I did," she said. "When the next election comes
around, however--"

She did not finish her remark, but picked up a book and fell to reading.

"This 'Fated to Conquer' isn't a bad story, Mary," she said after a
while. "When I read such a book--of love and romance and all that--I
wish I were, or had been, of the marrying kind of women. As it is--I'm
going to say it in confidence, Mary--I believe, when we get out of this,
I'll marry Bailey."

She did not notice her friend's peculiar expression, but talked idly on.
"You know he has wanted to marry me several times in the past. To be
sure, he hasn't proposed for a couple of years, but he will. A man will
always propose to the woman he loves if she gives him half a chance."

"Why didn't you marry him?" asked Mary in an expressionless voice.

"O, I never loved him, or thought I didn't," answered Gertrude. "I
didn't fully believe in his love for me, either; that is, he did not
love me as I wanted to be loved.