Miss Van Deusen's candidacy had been talked over at the clubhouse as elsewhere, and most of the members being old friends of her father or herself had agreed, more or less cautiously, to support her. John Allingham, with a few of the most conservative members, had prevented the Union Club from officially endorsing her, but he could not keep the several members from exercising their prerogative to work for whom they chose. And so while the Municipal League was holding a meeting at one end of the town to see if there were not some available candidate to defeat her, the new City Reform Club was being started at the other, to further the cause of Gertrude Van Deusen.

Judge Bateman opened the meeting and was made moderator, and later, elected president of the new organization, with Bailey Armstrong as secretary.

"You announce yourself here, Miss Van Deusen," asked the Judge after these preliminaries, "as candidate for mayor?"

"I do," was the answer.

"Then it becomes our affair to endorse you and to prepare our definite plan of work. That it is a most unusual, perhaps unheard-of thing to offer a young woman as candidate for the mayor's chair, we all know, goes without saying. But it seems to some of us sufficient reason for going down on our knees with thankfulness that a good and an able woman will consent to serve her city in such capacity. And we owe it to her, to ourselves as men, and to our city as voters and citizens, that we shall go out and work for her. Has anyone a definite plan of action?"

Nearly every man in the room spoke in the same strain and before ten o'clock their campaign was planned. Then the newspapers were called up and reporters began to appear. The next morning Roma had its second sensation. A leading editorial ran thus:

"Last night at the residence of the late Senator Van Deusen, a number of the most prominent men and women of this town met and organized the City Reform Club, and incidentally endorsed the candidacy of Miss Gertrude Van Deusen for mayor. If this organization, which welcomes representatives from all political parties, accomplishes half of what it has set itself to do, last night will have been a historical date for Roma. It has begun with a few aristocratic leaders, but we are inclined to believe the membership will soon embrace all grades of social as well as political voters; for careless as we have been in the past, the citizens of Roma desire to stand for the best things—to have the best schools, the best citizens, the best government in the state. The chief reason, perhaps, why we have them not, is that the people have not been in touch with the executive department. The people have known nothing of what was going on at City Hall. Now and then, we have attempted to lift the veil, but we all have been lax and easily turned aside. We confess it with shame; but we promise, as for this newspaper, to do better; and we publicly declare ourselves this morning as in sympathy with the new Reform Club. From now on The Atlas will champion the candidacy of Miss Gertrude Van Deusen as mayor of Roma, just as, for many years, we were proud to hold aloft the banner of her father, the late Senator Van Deusen."

When Gertrude read this she sat half-dazed for a moment, and then clapped her hands with gleeful surprise.

"What is it?" asked her cousin.

"The Atlas has come out for me. It endorses the Reform Club—and me. That's some of Bailey's work."

"Yes. I hope you appreciate what Bailey is doing for you," said Miss Craig. "He would make a good mayor, himself."

"There are a dozen men in Roma who would be good mayors," answered Gertrude, "if they would. But they will not. Hence—well, I'm going to a caucus tonight. Are you going with me?"

"Oh, no, I think not. I'll go when and where it is necessary to cast my vote for you, Gertie," said Miss Craig. "But for the rest—excuse me."

Mrs. Bateman and the Judge accompanied Miss Van Deusen, however, to the nearly empty room where the first primary was being held. It was in an outlying ward, and the few men who stood about were wonder-stricken at the presence of women,—although they had seen the sex out on election days in plenty.

"Now you are seeing just how politics in Roma has been managed for a decade past. Right there in that corner," said the Judge, "you find a door with a slit in it through which you deposit your ballot. No record is kept of your vote, and behind the door sit the leaders of the ring, already making up the returns, which show, without doubt, as this is a hostile ward, that your delegates were defeated by an overwhelming majority. Tomorrow the ring newspaper, which prints all the legal notices of the county and receives a generous income through the advertisement of corporations allied with the ring, and whose proprietor is promised a commissionership by the governor who is backing the ring, will notify its readers that the selfish office-seekers, who had contested in the primaries, have received a stinging rebuke at the hands of the voters, and their villainous attempts to destroy the party, which had so unselfishly devoted itself to the interests of the community, have fallen to the ground."

"And must this be allowed?" asked Mrs. Bateman.

"No," and the Judge's tones rang firmly. "We will call a mass-meeting in every district in the city, right away; we,—you, Miss Van Deusen, as well as I and the others,—must address the people, telling them what we mean to do, and how."

"I never faced an audience of men in my life," answered Gertrude, "but I can do it—and I will."

From that time on, there were meetings and caucuses and primaries every night. The Atlas was the only newspaper that came out openly, "the ring" sheet villified the "woman-question," while the others remained discreetly on the fence. But The Atlas had the largest circulation and its editorial policy had considerable weight with the citizens.

The "Progressive Workers" did everything possible to illustrate their name. Every woman of the two hundred worked and talked in and out of season. They attended primaries, they called mass-meetings in every district in the city, they provided speakers at these "rallies" (some of the best from their own membership) and they saw, personally, editors and political leaders wherever they might be found. Gertrude Van Deusen, herself, appeared on the platform at most of these meetings, attended by Mrs. Bateman, Mrs. Stillman and others of the leading women of Roma; and an increasing number of voters were won over to her side, as they listened to her clear voice giving utterance to calm and judicial opinions, worthy the daughter of Roma's pet senator. Even her intimate friends were surprised to note the accuracy with which she comprehended the city's needs and the insight which she had gained into the existing state of municipal affairs.

"A long head, that woman's got," remarked one business man to another, as they left one of the rallies. "If she could get the mayoralty I'm inclined to think she'd make Roma sit up and take notice. I'm half inclined to vote for her myself."

"Oh, pshaw!" returned the other, "she's astute enough—like her father before her. But you can't tell anything about it. Let the women get the power and they'll soon have a ring and a machine and their bosses as much as the men. And they'd crowd us right off the earth. No women in mine."

The other smiled, as he thought of the speaker's household of an assertive wife and four grown-up daughters, but he only said:

"Well, I'm not sure of that; and a change of bosses might be a good thing. Amalgamated took a rush today, didn't it?"

John Allingham was not enjoying life during these exciting days and nights. The Municipal League (which claimed to be "non-partisan") had not succeeded in settling upon a candidate, as the Republicans had not chosen any, and Burke, the choice of the Democrats, was too bitter a pill for them. The papers were not "interesting reading" for him, filled as they were with the doings of the "Progressive Workers" and Miss Van Deusen. He could not go on the street nor step inside a car, without hearing the buzz of talk about Gertrude Van Deusen,—"this young woman whose place was in her own refined and luxurious home, but who had chosen to pose in the lime-light of publicity instead," as he said. The story of how he had met the three ladies when they had called to announce their candidate, and of how he had met them more than half-way, and then eaten his own words, had leaked out through Judge Bateman, who thought it too good to keep; and as usual, it had gone the rounds of all his friends before Allingham knew it was in circulation. When he did hear of it, he was exceeding wroth, perhaps all the more so because he had no one but himself to blame. And he was in that mood when the chairman of the Republican committee called one morning.

"Got a candidate yet?" asked Allingham as his visitor drew up his chair.

"We've got one chosen," answered the chairman, whose name was Samuel Watts, "if he'll accept. And he's a good one."

"Well, go on," urged Allingham, as the other hesitated.

"He's got a good many points in his favor," said Watts, incisively. "He's popular with all classes, he's well-off, educated, of the best family stock, young, active, and knows how to make himself solid with the lower classes,—the working people, you know."

"Then he must be made to accept," answered Allingham. "In these times, it is the duty of such a man to accept the nomination."

"Think so?" asked the other with a grin. "Glad to hear it; for our man's name is John Allingham."

"Sam! I can't—I won't," exclaimed the chairman of the Municipal League, cursing himself inwardly for his habit of speaking his mind before he knew his premises. "This is too much—I don't want the office—or to contend with a woman for it!"

"That's your native chivalry, Jack," answered his friend in soothing fashion. "But we've got to put up a candidate with all the good qualities she possesses, to beat her. As the refined and beautiful daughter of Senator Van Deusen, we—you and I—have only admiration for this young woman—but—by Jove! when she enters politics she must meet us on our own ground. She must expect to give and take as we do. And we are bound to beat her. You, Jack, can do it. I know of nobody else who is available—this is quite between you and me—who would be sure to do it. Surely you are not afraid of a woman? When it comes to votes you'll win—and that will put the laugh on the other side when it comes to talking about the influence of women."

"I'll do it," said Allingham impulsively. "If you'd offered it to me a month ago—before you offered it to a half dozen others instead of afterward, I'd have refused straight up and down. But now, as things stand today, I accept the nomination."

"And I may go and report to the committee?" urged Watts.

"You may."

The chairman arose and shook Allingham's hand long and heartily. Then he departed to spread the good news. When he was gone, Morgan returned to his desk.

"Do you think there is need of sending out any more of those A-128 circulars, Jack?" he asked.

"No," answered Allingham. "Morgan, I'm an egregious fool, perhaps; but I've consented to accept the Republican nomination for mayor, myself."

The secretary gave vent to a long, low whistle.

"To run against Miss Van Deusen?" he asked, at length.

"To run against Miss Van Deusen," replied Allingham.

"H-m—this contributes something to the interest of affairs," said Morgan. "But, Jack—I wish you hadn't," he added doubtfully.

"Wish away," returned Jack cheerfully, "and much good may it do you." Then he turned to his desk and began to write diligently on the document he had been preparing when Watts came in.

Half an hour later, the door opened and Bailey Armstrong entered.

"Hullo, Bailey, take a chair," was Allingham's greeting, for the two had been schoolboys together. "What's the news? How's your candidate?"

"Jack," began Bailey anxiously, "I've come down to have one more heart-to-heart talk with you about Miss Van Deusen. It's a shame the Municipal League cannot endorse a noble, splendid woman like her. You know how rotten City Hall is. You ought to be the first to help in a movement to overthrow the present system. Come up with me tonight to Miss Van Deusen's. Get acquainted with her and listen to her sane talk and clear views; and then I am sure you'll come out on the right side."

"I'm on the right side now, Bailey," returned Jack, "and on the right track. It's too late to call on Miss Van Deusen."

"Why, too late?" asked Armstrong.

"Because I've already consented to accept the nomination of the Republican party," said Allingham. "I shall be her opposing candidate and I mean to beat her."

"Not by all the shades of the great Agamemnon!" exclaimed Bailey. "I'll turn every stick and stone in Roma to defeat you. Jack, I wouldn't have believed it of you!"

"Nor I of myself," returned Allingham coolly. "If you hadn't put up a woman I'd never have consented, Bailey, old fellow. But a woman's place is at home—she is too delicate for public office."

"O, bother the woman's place," returned Armstrong, rising to go. "The modern woman's place is where she is needed most, where she can do the most good, whether it is sewing on your buttons or ruling your city. Good-bye; reckon on sure defeat next January, Jack, or I'm no guesser;" and he slammed the door behind him as he hurried away.

He went straight to Van Deusen Hall and called for Gertrude. She was at the moment sewing on buttons for herself, but soon descended, smiling, to greet him. As he looked at her coming down the stairway, Bailey thought of the great calm of a starry night in the country. Some women always bring the sense of freshness and repose and brooding peace when they enter a room.

"You've got some news for me?" she said, giving him her hand.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I see it in your face," was the reply. "You have news—something that disquiets you."

"Yes, I have," said Armstrong. "I may as well tell it at once. Jack Allingham is entering the lists against you. He will be the Republican candidate."

She smiled. "I am not surprised. He considers it his duty, since a woman presumes to occupy the mayor's chair. I have met his mother several times, and his aunts. He is an only child and has been brought up to believe in all the old-time theories. I presume he knows no really fine up-to-date woman."

"No, he doesn't," replied Bailey. "He is one of the most conscientious and best fellows I ever knew, but he has been spoiled by his women-folk. I think he believes that a man is really a much superior being: that woman is only a weak imitation of God's noblest work. It's the doting aunt and the over-indulgent mother that spoil our men—"

"Undoubtedly; it is they who keep them from their best development," answered Gertrude. "But I'm rather glad on the whole, to have an opponent like Mr. Allingham—a foeman worthy of my steel, so to speak. If I win over him it will count for something, whereas to beat a man like Barnaby Burke—" She made a wry face.

"Yes—I grant that," said Bailey. "And you'll come near beating, too. We shall have to work harder than ever, but I'll beat Jack Allingham—or bust! Excuse the slang, Gertie, but I've got to relieve my feelings."

"You always were a great boy," laughed Miss Van Deusen, "and you always will be. Here's Jessie with letters. Get her to play to you while I read mine."

He went into the music-room and left her by the open fire. One of the letters bore the emblem of the Municipal League. She tore it open and read:

And having read it, she placed it on the glowing coals, smiling softly to herself the while.

The campaign was a furious one after that. The women, instead of leaving the management of things to men, were stirred to wonderful activity. They worked, not only among the men of their own acquaintance, but among the working-people; they held meetings in factories at noon, or in school-rooms or cheap halls at night in the districts where the factory-hands lived. They spoke at mass-meetings and rallies, and if they did not appear in torchlight processions, they saw that many banners were carried in them, bearing the women's motto and legend. It was a hard fight, but a good one, and the cause of womanhood as well as of good government was advanced by it.

When Sam Watts, for instance, with his pockets well-lined, went down into the district where lived the employees of the Roma Ice Company, he did not find it so easy to disburse that money as he had expected.

"No," said one man, "I can't forget that Miss Van Deusen's been good to me and mine."

"O, she is the Roma Ice Company, of course," returned Watts. "That is one of her assets; but you people are being ground down to hard labor every day to keep her in luxury—don't you see that?"

"I see," answered the man, "that she is almost the only employer I know who takes a personal interest in us."

"Yes, when votes are to be counted," sneered Watts.

"Listen," said the man. "Two years ago, when the strike was on, and there was a good deal of hard times around, she came right down among us and helped. She didn't sit down at home and let us take the consequences of the strike (no, I never was in favor of it. I only went out with the rest because I had to.) And she didn't send us a check as if we were just objects of charity. She came right down into the tenements and talked with our women-folks. She found out what they needed and provided it when it was necessary. She sat up all night with the sick baby of one of the strike leaders. My! but he was a shamed man the next day! And my own woman, why, man alive! when she had her baby and we'd no money at all, Gertrude Van Deusen sent a nurse and a doctor and paid for 'em; but more than that, she came down and stood by my wife (who was once a maid of hers), all through it. Do you suppose we are going back on a woman like that? No sirree! The votes of the Roma Ice Company are hers—to a man."

So it was that while the politicians were declaiming against her as a cold-blooded aristocrat, there were poor people all over the city who had some tale to tell of kindness done in secret, either by her or her father.

Towards the last of the campaign, a demand grew for a joint debate. Miss Van Deusen had appeared on the platform many times, and defined her attitude on public issues in Roma quite clearly. John Allingham had done the same, for he had a good following of the business men of the city, while the demagogues made a formidable showing for their candidate, Barnaby Burke. There was a growing feeling that there must be a fusion of the woman's ticket with the Allingham forces, but the former would not withdraw their candidate, and Allingham having put his hand to the municipal plough would not take it away.

Consequently, both sides agreed to a joint debate to be held at a great mass meeting the Monday evening before the election Tuesday. This was not without opposition from within each party, and there were some who hinted darkly that it might not come off.

All through the Monday preceding the debate Gertrude Van Deusen worked in her library, to prepare her speech for the evening. She had become familiar enough with her own voice so that she spoke easily and well to audiences of all sizes and degrees of intelligence, but this evening was to witness a trial of strength, a matching of wits which put her on her mettle. For John Allingham was a fine speaker, with a magnetic presence, clear logic, and a control of his audience that made him a powerful opponent, and Gertrude Van Deusen, although she would have died rather than own it, trembled secretly at the coming contest.

At six she ate her dinner with as much calmness as was possible under the circumstances, and proceeded to dress for the evening. She was one of the women who realize that appearances count with an audience, as well as words, and she put on her most becoming array. At half-past seven her maid came up from the door:

"They've sent for you," she announced. "An automobile is at the door."

"Why, I didn't know the committee was going to send for me," said Miss Van Deusen. "I ordered the carriage for a quarter to eight. Go down and ask the chauffeur—no, never mind. It's all right, no doubt. I'll go with him. Call up Thomas and tell him he needn't take the horses out tonight. But first hand me my fur coat and put on my over-shoes."

The maid obeyed and in five minutes more Gertrude Van Deusen was being tucked into the electric cab, by a chauffeur well wrapped up and muffled to his ears. The glass doors were closed tightly, Gertrude congratulating herself that she was shut away from the cold, clear January air, and that her horses might stand in their comfortable stalls. And then they whizzed away.

It was some moments before she noticed that they were going up the street instead of down it; but immediately she remembered that the city was repaving one of the streets between her home and the hall where she was to appear, and since they were evidently going to take the "longer way around" she settled back in her seat and began, once more, to rehearse the carefully-prepared speech for the evening. She had gone nearly through with it when she noticed that the streets, instead of being more thickly settled as they approached her intended destination, were wider, with scattered residences along the way; and that they were going at a rapid pace, over the smooth ground. It was a bright moonlit night, and there was a clear sky twinkling with stars. The onrush of the cab made no impression of a wind against her cheek, because she was so well shut away from the outside world, but through the glass windows she noted the beautiful, quiet night, and saw that they were fast leaving the city behind and gliding into the country.

Through the glass she could see the chauffeur sitting, almost immovable, intent upon his machine, and turning neither to the right or left, and a feeling of terror seized upon her as she realized that she was being carried away she knew not where, and that she was quite alone and helpless. She called to the chauffeur, but he paid no attention whatever to her cries. She shook the doors to her cab-prison, but she could not open them; she rapped on the glass front close to the driver's ears, but for all the notice he took of her she might have been a moth fluttering in the background of the night. And all the time they were rushing on, on, on, into the great calm of the moonlit night, beyond the glare of electric lights, beyond the suburban dwellings, beyond the cheerful farmhouses, and into the wooded roads which she recognized as belonging to a neighboring town, at least fifteen miles from Roma. She called again and again; she pounded the glass-front with the silver top of her purse—the only thing in her possession which could make a noise, but still the chauffeur sat motionless as if he were entirely alone. She rose in her seat and called to the driver of a team as they passed it; she tried to get the attention of a solitary foot-passenger, but the car flew too fast, and if the men saw her she was out of their reach before they could answer.

Then she settled back, exhausted. She realized now, that she was the victim of some trick of the opposition party. She looked at her watch. A quarter of nine. By now she should have made her speech. John Allingham was having everything his own way now, beyond a doubt. Possibly—probably, he was behind this attempt to kidnap her—afraid to meet a woman on a public platform; for that was it, disguise the thing as they might by saying he would not debate with a woman. Contemptible!

And still they flew on into the shining, moonlight night, out from the fine old wood road, along the river-way, miles and miles away.

If they were unwilling to match wits with a woman, why did they not say so? Why condescend to kidnaping a woman and running away with her from the fight? If this was the kind of a man John Allingham was—

They were turning into a cross-road now which led up-hill into another strip of wood. Shadows of tall pines and oak trees made it like a solemn temple, into the arched aisles of which they seemed to be entering. Gertrude did not see, and apparently the motionless automaton before her did not, that other machine gliding on in the shadowy road above and toward them. There was a jar and a crash and they all came down together.

Gertrude Van Deusen, inside her prison, was not hurt, but at last, her chauffeur was shaken out of his stoicism. Extricating himself from the wreck, he hurried to unfasten the door which was uppermost.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, speaking for the first time in twenty-two miles.

"I don't know. I think not. But let me out," she answered.

He drew her out and she was soon on the ground again. There was a groan.

"Who is that? There is a man hurt somewhere. We must get him out;" she said. "Hurry."

By this time the driver of the other machine had crawled out and was on his feet.

"It's Allingham," he said, in a tone of horror. "He's under the gear—"

"Then get him out—quick," cried Gertrude.

Her coolness and quickness of wit stimulated the two men and they set about releasing the imprisoned sufferer. But it was Gertrude Van Deusen who directed them and drew him out from under the wrecked machine, as the two chauffeurs lifted the weight above him.

It was John Allingham—quite unconscious.

A moment later she was alone in the beauty of the night, except for the man who lay unconscious beside her. She folded her own handkerchief and laid it on the wound and then arranged the larger one as a bandage. In tying it around his forehead, her fingers came in contact with his face—a white upturned face which appealed to her pity so deeply that she stopped to smooth his wide brow, as if he were a suffering child.

Allingham awoke suddenly as if an electric current flowed suddenly through his veins. His eyes opened, and gazing upward, he looked straight into the clear face above him, which was, also, changed and white in the moonlight. For a moment he did not recognize her. It was as if their kindred spirits had met in clear space, away from all earthly conditions. But in a moment, returning consciousness drew the veil between them and he sat up, still clinging to her hand.

"You!" he cried, "and here? What has happened? Why are you here?"

"We are having our joint debate," she replied whimsically, her voice betraying nothing of the tumult within. "But we are having it in an unlooked for place and fashion. And you have the worst of it. Be careful, please. Don't try to get up. The men have gone back for help. Our affairs seem to be decidedly mixed; but never mind; we shall soon be out of the woods—literally, I trust."

"How can you keep so calm?" said Allingham. "Most women would have gone to pieces. Why aren't you in tears?"

"Perhaps to demonstrate my fitness for the mayoralty of Roma," she replied with a touch of sarcasm. "There, the men are coming, with two others."

It was the work of but a few moments to get one automobile righted again, when it was found to be not seriously impaired; but the other one was wrecked beyond possibility of help that night.

"You'll both have to go back to Roma in this one," said Gertrude's chauffeur to Allingham.

"If you'll permit me?" queried Allingham to the young woman standing erect in the shade of the whispering pines. "But if you would prefer, I will stay at the farmhouse."

"No, no," answered Gertrude. "You must get back to the city and your physician at once. That is, if you can endure the ride."

"O, I'm all right. I was stunned a little, that's all, and my forehead seems to have been scratched quite a bit," said Allingham. "But come, if we are to ride together, we must get in."

He helped her to her seat and got in himself, while the two men tucked them in warmly and then climbed into the front seat. It was but a few moments before they were on the road again, spinning towards the city more than twenty miles away.

"Now, tell me," Allingham began, after making sure they were on the return road, "how did you happen to be here? I am devoured with curiosity."

"Don't you know—surely?" she returned.

"Know?—I? How should I?" was the answer in a tone that convinced the young woman, for the time being, anyway.

"Why," she hesitated. "It looked suspicious—or at least—well, somebody was behind it."

"You don't mean to say you were kidnaped, too," cried Allingham. "I seem to see light ahead."

"I had just ordered my carriage to go to the hall and was all ready to start," explained Gertrude, "when the automobile appeared, the chauffeur saying he had been sent for me. I supposed the committee had sent him—"

"Just as I supposed my committee had sent for me," interposed Allingham.

"Once in, and off, we came so fast I hardly realized anything until we were out of town; and when I tried to open the door I couldn't, it was fastened some way, on the outside; while as for making that automaton hear—well!—"

"The same in my case," said Allingham. "I was locked in. I've been attributing my ride to Bailey Armstrong's minions—and I presume you've been giving mine the credit for yours; but we probably owe it to the City Hall crowd. For Burke, I hear, is getting a good deal worried over tomorrow's election. But here we are, alive and with reason to be thankful."

"O, no, no," cried Gertrude, "think of that hall full of disappointed people—of the friends who believe in our good faith—of how we have failed to keep our promises. O, no, we cannot be thankful!"

"But think of the accident and of what might have happened in the crash—and didn't," he answered. "And let us forget for the rest of the ride, the political situation and that we are opposing candidates." To tell the truth, John Allingham was still tingling from that electric touch, although faint from loss of blood, and judging by the pale face of his companion, he felt that neither could endure much more. Gertrude, looking out of the cab-window at the river gleaming under the bright moonlight, was suddenly reminded of a night she had once passed by the Danube, and fell to talking of it.

Allingham, who had traveled much abroad, and had a keen memory, welcomed the reminiscent mood, and the desultory conversation for the rest of the way was such as might have been expected between two intelligent, sympathetic acquaintances, thrown together during an idle hour.

It was long after twelve when they glided into Roma again. The hall had been closed an hour before and the disappointed audience, after listening impatiently to the extempore speakers who had tried to fill the time until the principals in the joint debate should appear, had gone home doubtful of the morrow.

The auto stopped outside the gate in front of Van Deusen Hall and one of the chauffeurs, still muffled to the eyes, helped Gertrude to the ground. John Allingham had stepped out first. But before he could remonstrate with them for leaving a lady on the street alone and past midnight, in fact, just as he was beginning to ask angrily, why they did not drive in, the man slammed the door, jumped to his seat, and the cab glided away.

"And we haven't the faintest idea who they are?" said Miss Van Deusen. "They didn't have any number—"

"If it wasn't left with the wreck," answered Allingham, "and they were, doubtless, too sharp for that. They have taken it off and hidden it. But I shall have this thing looked into. A kidnaping affair like this can't fail of discovery."

"But neither of us could describe the men," returned the young woman. "I couldn't—could you? They were thoroughly disguised in their big coats and caps; and mine did not speak, only that once."

"Nor mine, except at the wreck," said Allingham. "Nor do I know of an electric cab in Roma. But nevertheless, you must go in."

He walked up to the door with her. The house was all alight, her cousin waiting in the greatest alarm. For there had been much telephoning around the city when the speakers failed to appear at the meeting, and the utmost consternation had been felt at their disappearance.

Jessica Craig met her cousin with a sob, and a demand for explanations in the same breath. But Gertrude was insisting that Allingham should step in and rest, late as it was.

"He is hurt," she explained to her cousin. "He must have something done. Telephone to Dr. Dean immediately, James."

It did not take much urging to induce her opponent to enter the hospitable mansion, for he was now weak and faint. Once inside, the warm atmosphere proved too much and he had to be helped to a sofa. Stimulants were brought and administered, and Gertrude herself assisted in getting him to the library to await the doctor.

When that functionary appeared he found a severe scalp wound and a pulse which bounded so high that he ordered him to his own carriage, bearing him off to the Allingham home as soon as he could apply the requisite number of plasters and bandages to his head. An anxious mother and aunt were already preparing to receive him as an invalid, the news of the accident and of his return to Roma having been telephoned. But before he went, he found a chance to murmur to Gertrude Van Deusen his thanks for her flying of the flag of truce, and his appreciation of her kindness.

Feverish as he was, he half hoped she might win next day, whenever in that long night, he recalled the look on her face, as she bent over him in the moonlight.

As for Gertrude, she tossed through sleepless hours, after the excitement had passed and everybody had gone home, thinking, thinking, thinking.

"What a pity for him to feel as he does about women," she said to herself. "A man full of all tenderness and chivalry at heart, he is behind his age. I wonder how we would have met if I had never gone into politics. I wonder if he would have liked me then, really?"

"Gertrude is always prompt," said Mrs. Bateman, as they waited in the ante-room. "I cannot imagine what is keeping her. Telephone over to her house, Anna, and see if she has left, won't you? I have to attend to things here."

Mrs. Stillman hurried to the telephone, coming back later with a puzzled expression on her aristocratic features.

"Her cousin says she left there at half past seven in an automobile," she said. "It is half past eight now."

"An automobile?" said Mrs. Bateman. "Did anybody send for her, I wonder?"

No one seemed to know. Their candidate had always been transported in her own carriage and no one had thought of sending for her. Still, some friend might have done so—and in an automobile, Bailey Armstrong, for instance—who had a new one. Nothing was more natural than—

But just then Bailey came into the ante-room.

"It's the strangest thing," he began, "Miss Van Deusen does not come, and nobody seems to know where she is. And Jack Allingham is missing, too. None of his friends can account for his absence. What are we going to do?"

"Do?" repeated Mrs. Bateman. "What can we do?"

"The audience—a crowded one—is getting impatient," Bailey went on. "We've got to begin somehow. The other side have a speaker whom they can put on, but we—"

"Go on yourself, Bailey," said Mrs. Mason. "You'll have to. We can fill up the time somehow until Gertrude comes."

After a hurried consultation with the representatives from Allingham's committee, the meeting was opened and the speaking began. But although those who addressed the audience were eloquent enough, they were unprepared, and moreover, were conscious that their listeners were keeping one eye upon the door; in short, everybody present desired only to hear the two appointed speakers; so that the affair was most perfunctory. The minutes grew into hours, and these did not arrive. Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Bateman, even Mary Snow, were sent out to the platform to represent the woman's side, and although they were well received, the meeting broke up at eleven o'clock with a distinct sense of disappointment, not to say failure. The audience dispersed with but one question:

"Where are they? and why have they not come?"

A little after two, Gertrude called up Mrs. Bateman and told her of the events which had transpired since she had started out for the joint debate; but it was too late to send explanations to any other member of the committee.

"Are you going to let it get into the newspapers?" asked Mrs. Bateman.

"Not I," said Gertrude. "Think what a miserable sensation it would make."

"Then I must call up Allingham's house and ask them to suppress it," answered Mrs. Bateman. "But what excuse can we make? Something must be said in explanation."

"I don't know," said Gertrude wearily. "I leave that to you and Judge Bateman. I do not want it to get into the newspapers."

"Very well; then I will call up the Allingham's" responded Mrs. Bateman. Which she did, and found that Mrs. Allingham was horror-stricken at the bare suggestion that the kidnaping of her son should be written up for the press.

"He is asleep," she said, "and has been since the doctor put on his last bit of plaster; but as soon as he wakens I will ask him what I shall tell you to say. Anyhow, we will keep it out of the papers, if possible."

But all the same the next morning the story was featured in every journal in town, with more or less display according to the style of each individual paper. Naturally, the more conservative of them strove to tell the story correctly and insinuated that the Burke party were behind the "contemptible trick;" but the sheet which upheld the "City Hall crowd," as all Roma termed its municipal authorities, gave a most sensational account, telling it with a flippant and gleeful inaccuracy which spoke volumes for the accomplishments of modern yellow journalism. It headed its article thus: