When our taxi stopped at the major's gate, somebody was coming out just as we were getting ready to go in. The light from the street arc was broken a good bit by the sidewalk trees, and the man had the visor of his big flat golf cap pulled down well over his eyes, but I knew him just the same. It was Collingwood!

This looked like more trouble. What was the president's nephew doing here? I wondered about that, and also, if the boss had recognized Collingwood. If he had, he made no sign, and a moment later I had punched the bell-push and Maisie Ann was opening the door for us.

"Both of you? oh, how nice!" she said, with a smile for the boss and a queer little grimace for me. "Come in. This is our evening for callers. Cousin Basil is out, but he'll be back pretty soon, and he left word for you to wait if you got here before he did."

That message was for the boss, and I lagged behind in the dimly lighted hall while she was showing him into the back parlor. I heard her wheel up a chair for him before the fire, and go on chattering to him about nothing, and by that I knew that there wasn't anybody else in the parlor and that she was just filling in the time until something else should happen.

It wasn't long until the something happened. I had dropped down on the hall settee, in the end of it next to the coat-rack, and when Mrs. Sheila came down-stairs and went through the hall, she didn't see me. A second later I heard the boss jump up and say, "At last! It seems as if you had been gone a year rather than a fortnight," and then Maisie Ann came dodging out and plunked herself down on the settee beside me.

You needn't tell me that we had no right to sit there listening; I know it well enough. On the other hand, I was just shirky enough to shift the responsibility to Maisie Ann. She didn't make any move to duck, so I didn't.

"You came out to see Cousin Basil?" Mrs. Sheila was saying to the boss. And then: "He had a telephone call from the Bullard, and he asked me to tell you to wait." After that, I guess she sat down to help him wait, for pretty soon we heard her say: "Cousin Basil has told me a little about the new trouble: have you been having another bad quarter of an hour?"

"The worst of the lot," the boss said gravely, and from that he went on to tell her about the Hatch visit and what had come of it; how the grafters had a new claw hold on him, now, made possible by an unwarranted piece of meddling on the part of the New York people in the political game.

It was while he was talking about this that Maisie Ann grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me bodily into the darkened front parlor, the door to which was just on the other side of the coat rack. I thought she had come to her right senses, at last, and was making the shift to break off the eavesdropping. That being the case, I was simply horrified when I found that she was merely fixing it so that we could both see and hear. The sliding doors between the two parlors were cracked open about an inch, and before I realized what she was doing she had pulled me down on the floor beside her, right in front of that crack.

"If you move or make a noise, I'll scream and they'll come in here and find us both!" she hissed in my ear; and because I didn't know what else to do with such a kiddish little termagent, I sat still. It was dastardly, I know; but what was I to do?

The first thing we saw was that the two in the other room were sitting at opposite sides of the fire. Mrs. Sheila was awfully pretty; prettier than I had ever seen her, because she had a lot more color in her face, and her eyes had that warm glow in them that even the grayest eyes can get when there is a human soul behind them, and the soul has got itself stirred up about something.

When the boss finished telling her about the Hatch talk, she said: "You mean that Mr. Dunton and his associates sent somebody out here to influence the election?"

The boss looked up sort of quick.

"Yes; that is it, precisely. But how did you know?"

"You made the inference perfectly plain," she countered. "I have a reasoning mind, Graham; haven't you discovered it before this?"

The boss nodded soberly. "I have discovered a good many things about you during the past six months: one of them is that there was never another woman like you since the world began."

Knowing, as I did, that she had a husband alive and kicking around somewhere, it seemed as if I just couldn't stay there and listen to what a break of that kind on the boss's part was likely to lead up to. But Maisie Ann gripped my wrist until she hurt.

"You must listen!" she whispered fiercely. "You're taking care of him, and you've got to know!"

As on many other earlier occasions, Mrs. Sheila slid away from the sentimental side of things just as easy as turning your hand over.

"You are too big a man to let an added difficulty defeat you now," she remarked calmly, going back to the business field. "You are really making a miraculous success. I have just spent two weeks in the capital, as you know, and everybody is talking about you. They say you are in a fair way to solve the big problem—the problem of bringing the railroads and the people together in a peaceable and profitable partnership—which is as it should be."

"It can be done; and I could do it right here on the Pioneer Short Line if I didn't have to fight so many different kinds of devils at the same time," said the boss, scowling down at the fire in the grate. And then with a quick jerk of his head to face her: "You sent the major a wire from the capital last night, telling him to persuade me not to go to Strathcona. Why did you do it? And how did you know I was thinking of going?"

For the first time in the whole six months I saw Mrs. Sheila get a little flustered, though she didn't show it much, only in a little more color in her cheeks.

"Some day, perhaps, I may tell you, but I can't now," she said sort of hurriedly. And then: "You mustn't ask me."

"But you did send the wire?"

"Yes."

"And you also sent another to Upton Van Britt?"

"I did."

The boss smiled. "That second message was an after-thought. You were afraid I'd be stubborn and go, anyway. That was some more of your marvelous inner reasoning. Tell me, Sheila, did you know that there was going to be a broken rail-joint set to kill me on that trip?"

That got her in spite of her heavenly calm and I could see her press her pretty lips together hard.

"Was that what they did?" she asked, a bit trembly.

He nodded. "Van Britt was on the pilot engine ahead of my car, and he found it. There was no harm done. It was bad enough, God knows, to set a trap that would have killed everybody on my train; but this other thing that has been pulled off to-night is even worse. Mr. Dunton and his unprincipled followers have set a thing on foot here which is due to grind us all to powder. Past that, they have contrived to handcuff me so that I can't make a move without pulling down consequences of a personal nature upon President Dunton, himself."

"Now my 'marvelous inner reasoning' has gone quite blind," she said, with a queer little smile. "You'll have to explain."

"It's simple enough," said the boss shortly. "If Mr. Dunton had sent only hired emissaries out here to bribe the members of the Legislature—but he didn't; he included a member of his own family."

I was looking straight at Mrs. Sheila as he spoke, and I saw a sudden frightened shock jump into the slate-gray eyes. Just for a second. Before you could count one, it was gone and she was saying quietly:

"A member of his own family? That is very singular, isn't it?"

"It is, and it isn't. The man who was sent with the bribe money has every qualification for the job, I should say, save one—discretion. And I'm not sure that he may not be discreet enough, when he isn't drunk."

Again I saw the curious look in her eyes, and this time it was almost like the shrinking from a blow.

"Was there—was this thing that was done actually criminal?" she asked, just breathing it at him.

"It was, indeed. The election laws of this State have teeth. It is a penitentiary offense to bribe either the electorate or the law-makers."

There was silence for a little time, and she was no longer looking at him; she was staring into the heart of the glowing coals in the grate basket. By and by she said: "You haven't told me this man's name—the one who did the bribing; may I know it?"

I knew just what the boss was going to do, and he did it; took the slip of paper that Dedmon had written on from his pocket and passed it across to her. If there was another shock for her none of us could see it. She had her face turned away when she looked at the name on the paper. Pretty soon she said, sort of drearily:

"Once you told me that the true test of any human being came when he was asked to eliminate the personal factor; to efface himself completely in order that his cause might prosper. Do you still believe that?"

"Of course. It's all in the day's work. Any cause worth while is vastly bigger than any man who is trying to advance it."

"Than any man, yes; but for a woman, Graham; wouldn't you allow something for the woman?"

"I thought we had agreed long ago that there is no double standard, either in morals or ethics—one thing for the man and another for the woman. That is your own attitude, isn't it?"

She didn't say whether it was or not. She was holding the bit of paper he had given her so that the light from the fire fell upon it when she said: "I suppose your duty is quite clear. In the slang of the street, you must 'beat Mr. Hatch to it.' You must be the first to denounce this bribery, clearing yourself and letting the axe fall where it will. You owe that much to yourself, to the men who have fought shoulder to shoulder with you, and to that wider circle of the public which is beginning to believe that you are honest and sincere, don't you?"

The boss was shaking his head a bit doubtfully.

"It isn't quite so simple as that," he objected. "I don't know that I'd have any compunctions about sending Collingwood to the dump. If the half of what they say of him is true, he is a spineless degenerate and hardly worth saving. But to do as you suggest would be open rebellion, you know; while Dunton remains president, I am his subordinate, and if I should expose him and his nephew, the situation here would become simply impossible."

"Well?" she prompted.

"Such a move would rightly and properly bring a wire demand for my resignation, of a nature that couldn't be ignored—only it wouldn't, because I should anticipate it by resigning first. That is a small matter, introducing the personal element which we have agreed should be eliminated. But the results to others; to the men of my staff and the rank and file, and to the public, which, as you say, is just beginning to realize some of the benefits of a real partnership with its principal railroad; these things can't be so easily ignored."

"You have thought of some other expedient?"

"No; I haven't got that far yet. But I am determined that Hatch shall not be allowed to work his graft a second time upon the people who are trusting me. I believe in the new policy we are trying out. I'd fling my own fortune into the gap if I had one, and, more than that, I'd pull in every friend I have in the world if by so doing I could stand the Pioneer Short Line upon a solid foundation of honest ownership. That is all that is needed in the present crisis—absolutely all."

He was on his feet now and tramping back and forth on the hearth rug. At one of his back-turnings I saw Mrs. Sheila reach out quickly and lay the bit of paper with its accusing scrawl on the glowing coals. Then she said, quite calm again:

"In time to come you will accomplish even that, Graham—this change of ownership that we have talked of and dreamed about. It is the true solution of the problem; not Government ownership, but ownership by the people who have the most at stake—the public and the workers. You are a strong man, and you will bring it about. But this other man—who is not strong; the man whose name was written upon the bit of paper I have just thrown into the fire...."

He wheeled quickly, and what he said made me feel as if a cold wind were blowing up the back of my neck, because I hadn't dreamed that he would remember Collingwood well enough to recognize him in that passing moment on the sidewalk.

"That man," he muttered, sort of gratingly: "I had completely forgotten. He was here just a little while ago. I met him as I was coming in. Did he come to see your cousin—the major?"

"No," she said, matching his low tone; "he came to see me."

"You?"

"Yes. Finding himself in a pitfall which he has digged with his own hands, he is like other men of his kind; he would be very glad to climb out upon the shoulders of a woman."

I guess the boss saw red for a minute, but the question he asked had to come.

"By what right did he come to you, Sheila?"

"By what he doubtless thinks is the best right in the world. He is my husband."

It was out at last, and the boss's poor little house of cards that I knew he had been building all these months had got its knock-down in just those four quietly spoken words. Maisie Ann was still gripping my wrist, and I felt a hot tear go splash on my hand. "Oh, I could kill him!" she whispered, meaning Collingwood, I suppose.

As well as I knew him, I couldn't begin to guess what the boss would do or say. But he was such a splendid fighter that I might have known.

"I heard, no longer ago than this afternoon, that you were not—that your husband was still living," he said, speaking very gently. "I didn't believe it—not fully—though I saw that there might easily be room for the belief. It makes no difference, Sheila. You are my friend, and you are blameless. But before we go any farther I want you to believe that I wouldn't have been brutal enough to give you that bit of paper if I had remotely suspected that Collingwood was the man."

She didn't make any answer to that, and after a while he said:

"Having told me so much, can't you tell me a little more?"

"There isn't much to tell, and even the little is commonplace and—and disgraceful," she replied, with a touch of weariness that was fairly heart-breaking. "Don't ask me why we were married; I can't explain that, simply because I don't know, myself. It was arranged between the two families, and I suppose Howie and I always took it for granted. I can't even plead ignorance, for I have known him all my life."

"Go on," said the boss, still speaking as gently as a brother might have.

"Howie was a spoiled child, an only son, and he is a spoiled man. I stood it as long as I could—I hope you will believe that. But there are some things that a woman cannot stand, and——"

"I know," he broke in. "So you came out here to be free."

"It is four years since we have lived together," she went on, "and for a long time I hoped he would never find out where I was. There was no divorce: I couldn't endure the thought of the publicity and the—the disgrace. When I came here to Cousin Basil's there was no attempt made to hide the facts; or at least the one chief fact that I was a married woman. But on the other hand, I had taken my mother's name, and only Cousin Basil and his wife knew that I was not what perhaps every one else took me to be,—a widow with a dead husband instead of a living one."

"Did Collingwood try to find you?"

"No, I think not. But when he was here last spring with his Uncle Breckenridge he saw me and found out that I was living here with Cousin Basil."

"Did he try to persecute you?"

"No, not then. I was afraid of only one thing: that he might drink too much and—and talk. Part of the fear was realized. He saw me that Sunday night in the Bullard. That was why he was trying to fight the hotel people—because they wouldn't let him come up-stairs. I saw what you did, and I was sorry. I couldn't help feeling that in some way it would prove to be the beginning of a tragedy."

"You saw no more of him then?"

"No; I neither saw him nor heard of him until about a month ago when he came west with a man named Bullock—a New York attorney. I didn't know why he came, but I thought it was to annoy me."

"And he has annoyed you?"

"Until this night he has never missed an opportunity of doing so when he could dodge Cousin Basil. Caring nothing for me himself, he has taken violent exceptions to my friendship with you and with Upton Van Britt, though that is chiefly when he has been drinking too much. It was his taunting boast yesterday at the capital that led me to telegraph Cousin Basil and Upton Van Britt about your trip to Strathcona. He knew that you were going to the gold camp, and he declared to me that you'd never come back alive."

"But to-night," the boss persisted. "What did he want to-night?"

"He wanted to—to use me. He said that he had 'put something across' for his uncle, that he had gotten into trouble for it, and that—to use his own phrase again, you were the man who would try to 'get his goat.'"

"And his object in telling you this?"

"Was entirely worthy of the man. He asked me, or rather I should say, commanded me, to 'choke you off.' And, of course, he added the insult. He said I was the one who could do it."

The boss had gone to tramping again and when he stopped to face her I could see that he had threshed his way around to some sort of a conclusion.

"Without intending to, you have tied my hands," he said gravely. "I wasn't meaning to spare Collingwood if there were any way in which I could use him as a club to knock Hatch out of the game."

"But now you won't use him?"

"You might justly write me down as a pretty poor friend of yours if I should—after what you have told me."

"I haven't asked you to spare him."

"No, I know you haven't. But the fact remains that he is your husband. I——"

The interruption was the opening and closing of the front door and the heavy tread of the major in the hall. In a flash Mrs. Sheila was up and getting ready to vanish through the door that led to the dining-room. With her hand on the door-knob she shot a quick question at the boss.

"How much will you tell Cousin Basil?"

"Nothing of what you have told me."

"Thank you," she whispered back; "you are as big in your friendship as you are in other ways." And with that she was gone.

It was right along in the same half-minute, while the boss was standing with his back to the fire and the major was going in to talk to him, that I lost Maisie Ann. I don't know where she went, or how. She had let go of my wrist, and when I groped for her she was gone. Since I didn't see any good reason why I should stay and spy upon the boss and the major, I slipped out to the hall and curled up on the big settee beyond the coat rack; curled up, and after listening a while to the drone of voices in the farther room, went to sleep.

It was away deep in the night when the boss took hold of me and shook me awake. The long talk was just getting itself finished, and the major had come to the door with his guest.

"We must manage to pull Collingwood out of it in some way," the major was saying. "I don't love the damn' scoundrel any betteh than you do, Graham; but thah's a reason—a fam'ly reason, as you might say." Then he switched off quickly. "You haven't asked me yet why I ran away from home this evenin' when I was expecting you."

"No," said the boss. "Sheila told me that you had a telephone call to the Bullard."

The old Kentuckian chuckled.

"Yes, suh; and you'd neveh guess in a thousand yeahs who sent the call, or what was wanted. It was ouh friend Hatch, and no otheh. And he had the face to offeh me ten thousand dollahs a yeah to act as consulting counsel for him against the railroad company!"

"Of course you accepted," said the boss, meaning just the opposite.

The major chuckled again. "I talked with him long enough to find out about where he stood. He thinks he's got you by the neck, but, like most men of his breed, he's a paltry coward, suh, at heart."

The boss laughed. "What is he afraid of?"

"He's afraid of his life. He told me, with his eyes buggin' out, that thah was one man heah in Portal City who would kill him to get possession of certain papehs that were locked up in the cash vault of the Security National."

The boss was pulling on his gloves.

"I didn't give him any reason to think that I was anxious to murder him," he said.

"Oh, no, my deah boy; it isn't you, at all. It's Howie Collingwood. Thah's where we land afteh all is said and done. Youh hands are tied, and we've got this heah young maniac to deal with. If Collingwood gets about three fingehs of red likkeh under his belt, why, thah's one murder in prospect. And if Hatch has any reason to think that you can still get the underholt on him, why, thah's another. I'm glad you've seen fit to take Ripley's advice at last, and got you a body-guard."

"What's that?" queried the boss. But the query was answered a minute later when we hit the sidewalk for the tramp back to town and Tarbell fell in to walk three steps behind us all the way to the door of the railroad club.

It sure did look as if things were just about as bad as they could ever be, now. Hatch once more on top, the whole bottom knocked out of the railroad experiment, our good name for political honesty gone glimmering, and, worst of all, perhaps, the boss's big heart broken right in two over those four little words that nothing could ever rub out—"he is my husband." I didn't wonder that the boss said never a word in all that long walk down-town, or that he forgot to tell me good-night when he locked himself up in his room at the club.