him. All this she told
me in a note, to be opened in case of her death. He must have refused to
help. He had not the criminal courage to produce the abortion which he
falsely promised in his advertisements. What passed between them I do
not know. But I believe that she attempted to kill him and failed. She
attempted to kill herself and succeeded. The blood of Camilla Neal is on
every cent of Dr. Surtaine's ten-thousand-dollar subscription."

He tossed the wreath aside. It rolled, clattering and clinking, and
settled down at the feet of the Midas of Medicine who stared at it with
a contorted face.

The meeting sat stricken into immovability. It seemed incredible that
the tensity of the silence should not snap. Yet it held.

"I shall vote 'No' on the motion," said the Reverend Norman Hale, still
with that quiet and appalling simplicity. "I came here from a
hand-to-hand struggle with death to vote 'No.' I have strength for only
a word more. The city is stricken with typhus. It is no time for
concealment or evasion. We are at death-grips with a very dreadful
plague. It has broken out of the Rookeries district. There are half a
dozen new foci of infection. In the face of this, silence is deadly. If
you elect Dr. Surtaine and adopt his plan, you commit yourself to an
alliance with fraud and death. You deceive and betray the people who
look to you for leadership. And there will be a terrible price to pay
in human lives. I thank you for hearing me patiently."

No man spoke for long seconds after the young minister sat down,
wavering a little as he walked to a chair at the rear. But through the
representative citizenship of Worthington, in that place gathered,
passed a quiver of sound, indeterminate, obscure, yet having all the
passion of a quelled sob. Eyes furtively sought the face of Dr.
Surtaine. But the master-quack remained frozen by the same bewilderment
as his fellows. Perhaps alone in that crowd, Elias M. Pierce remained
untouched emotionally. He rose, and his square granite face was cold as
abstract reason. There was not even feeling enough in his voice to give
the semblance of a sneer to his words as he said:

"All this is very well in its place, and doubtless does credit to the
sentimental qualities of the speaker. But it is not evidence. It is an
unsupported statement, part of which is admittedly conjecture. Allowing
the alleged facts to be true, are we to hold a citizen of Dr. Surtaine's
standing and repute re