When David, after leaving Helen at the end of the next afternoon, sat down to his early dinner in the almost empty Pan-American, the Mayor came swaying toward him. During the last two weeks the Mayor had been daily seeking David for sympathy over his marriage, or advice upon his wedding clothes and upon arrangements for the ceremony that was to make his life a joyless waste. He took an opposite chair, sighed heavily and regarded David in steady gloom.

"D'you, realise, friend," he burst out, "that it's only one day more? Twenty-four hours from to-night at nine o'clock! Only one day more o' life! If God had to make me, why didn't he put a little sense into me—that's what I'd like to know!"

He shook his head despairingly. But after a few moments his face began to lighten and he leaned across the table. "But anyhow, friend, don't you think my weddin' clothes is just about proper!"

David agreed they were, and in the discussion of the marriage garments the Mayor forgot the marriage and became quite happy. From garments he passed on to a description of the preparation for the wedding festivities, which were to be held in the Liberty Assembly Hall.

He leaned proudly back and glowed on David. "It's goin' to be the swellest ever," he said, with a magnificent wave of his right hand. "It's goin' to have every weddin' that was ever pulled off in this part o' town, simply skinned to death—yes, sir, simply faded to nothin'."

He flamed upward into the very incandescence of pride. But on the morrow his pride was ashes. Never did another bridegroom have so severe an attack of the bridegroom's disease as did the Mayor. All the afternoon he kept David beside him, and once when David tried to leave for a few minutes the Mayor frantically caught his arm and would not let him go. The Mayor was too agitated to sit still, too nerveless to move about, too panic-stricken to talk or to listen to David; and when, after dinner, it came to putting on his wedding raiment, he was in such a funk that David had to dress him. He had but one coherent idea, and that he often expressed, his glassy, fearful eyes appealingly on David, with a long-drawn moan: "Friend, ain't it hell!"

When it came time to leave, the Mayor collapsed into a chair and glared defiantly at David. "I ain't goin' to go!" he announced in a tremulous roar. But David, by the use of force and dire pictures, finally got him into the dressing-room of the Liberty Assembly Hall where he was to meet Miss Becker. She was already there, and she came toward him with a blushing smile. He stood motionless, his tongue wet his lips, a hand felt his throat. He gazed at the white gown and at the veil as a condemned man at the noose. He put a limp, fumbling hand into hers. "Howdy do, Carrie," he said huskily.

Some men are cowards till the battle starts, then are heroes. When the Mayor and his triumphant bride, radiant on his arm, paused a moment outside the hall door for the march to begin, he was still the agitated craven. But when he saw within the hall the scores of gorgeous guests, and realised that he was the chief figure in this pageant, his spirit and savoir-faire flowed back into him; and when Professor Bachmann's orchestra struck into the wedding-march he stepped magnificently forward, throwing to right and left ruddy, benign smiles. He bore himself grandly through the ceremony; he started the dancing by leading the grand march with Mrs. Hoffman in his most magnificent manner; and at the wedding supper, which was served in an adjoining room, he beamingly responded to the calls for a speech with phrases and flourishes that even he had never before equalled.

At the end of the supper the party resumed dancing, and the Mayor had a chance to pause a moment beside David. He swept a huge, white-gloved hand gracefully about the room, and demanded in an exultant whisper:

"Didn't I tell you, friend, that this was goin' to be the swellest weddin' that ever happened? Well, ain't it?"

"It certainly is," agreed David.

The Mayor tapped David's shirt-front with his forefinger. "It certainly is the real thing, friend. Nothin' cheap-skate about this, let me tell you. Everything is just so. Why, did you notice even the waiters wore white gloves? Yes, sir—when I get married, it's done right!"

He leaned to within a few confidential inches of David's ear. "And say—have you sized up Carrie? Ain't she simply It! Huh, she makes every other woman in this bunch look like a has-been!"

A little later, during a lull in the dancing, the Mayor and his bride, who had quietly withdrawn, suddenly appeared in the doorway of the hall, hatted and wrapped.

"Good-bye!" boomed the Mayor's mighty voice. "Same luck to you all!"

Mrs. Hoffman's finger-tips flung a kiss from her blushing lips to the guests, and the Mayor's hand gathered a kiss from amid his own glowing face and bestowed it likewise. The guests rushed forward, but the couple went down the stairs in a flurry, into a waiting carriage, and were gone.

The dancing continued till early workmen began to clatter through the streets—for in the supper-room was enough cold meats and cake and punch and ices to gorge the guests for a week, and Professor Bachmann has been paid to keep his musicians going so long as a dancer remained on the floor. But David slipped away soon after the bride and groom.

When he got home he found Kate Morgan sitting by Rogers's side. He looked at her in constraint, and she at him—and it was a very uncomfortable moment till Rogers announced:

"She's going with me."

David turned to his friend. There was an excited glow in Rogers's dark eyes.

"What?" David asked.

"She's going with me—to Colorado."

David stared at him, and then at Kate, who nodded. "Oh, I see!" he said.

Kate's features tightened, and she looked at him defiantly. "It isn't what you think. I offered to marry him, but he wouldn't let me."

"What, let a woman marry a wreck like me!" exclaimed Rogers. "No, she's going as a nurse. I've begged her not to go, but she insists."

"Why shouldn't I?" Kate asked, still with her straight, defiant look full on David. "My father's now in an asylum. Mr. Rogers needs me: he'll be lonely—he ought to have someone to take care of him. I know something about nursing. Why shouldn't I?"

David looked at her slight, rigidly erect figure, standing with one hand on the back of Rogers's chair, and tried to find words for the feelings that rushed up from his heart. But before he could speak she said abruptly, "Good night," and, very pale, marched past David and out of the room.

The following afternoon, as David was helping Rogers with the last of the packing for the western trip, which was to be begun that night, a messenger brought him a letter. He looked at the "St. John's Hospital" printed in one corner of the envelope in some surprise before he opened the letter. It read:

"Dear Sir:—

"There has just been brought here, fatally injured from being run down by an express wagon, a woman whose name seems to be Lillian Drew, judging from a packet of old letters found on her person. As your address was the only one about her, I am sending you this notice on the possibility that you may be an interested party."

The note was signed "James Barnes, House Surgeon." David's first thought was, Morton's letters have been read and the secret has begun to come out! For a space he did not know whether this was a hope or a fear. On the way to the hospital it was of the glory that would follow this disclosure, and not of the disaster, that he thought. He saw his name cleared, himself winning his way unhampered into honour, free to marry Helen—he saw a long stretch of happiness in work and in love.

On reaching the hospital he was led to a small room adjoining the operating-room. Here he found Dr. Barnes, a young fellow of twenty-five, shirt sleeves rolled above his elbows, aproned in a rubber sheet, head swathed in gauze. He was beginning to wash his hands at an iron sink.

"Are you a near friend or relative?" Dr. Barnes asked after David had introduced himself.

"An acquaintance," David answered.

"Then I can break the news point-blank. She died a few minutes ago."

David hardly knew what the young surgeon was saying—his mind was all on the letters.

"It's the old, old story," added the surgeon, with a shrug. "Intoxicated—got in the way of a truck—a cracked skull. I've been trying to do what I could for her"—he nodded toward the open door of the operating-room,—"but she died under the operation."

"In your note," David said as steadily as he could, "you mentioned some letters."

"Oh, yes. I wanted to find the address of friends, so I read a few of them." He smiled at David as he rubbed a cake of yellow soap about in his hands.

David leaned heavily against a window-sill. His mind was reeling.

"They were from relatives?" he forced from his lips.

The surgeon gave a short laugh. "Hardly! They were love letters—and warm ones, too! All about twenty years old. Queer, wasn't it."

He rinsed the soap from his arms and began to rub them with a white powder. "But I got nothing out of them. They were merely signed 'Phil.'"

David's control returned to him, and he was conscious of a tremendous relief. "I suppose," he said, "there's no objection to my claiming and taking the letters."

"We usually turn anything found on a body over to the relatives or friends. But pardon me—I don't know that you're the proper person."

"There's no one else to claim them. I'm perfectly willing to give you security for them."

"Oh, I guess it'll be all right. They're merely a package of old letters."

He walked over to where several coats were hanging, and pointed a scoured hand at one. "I've just washed up for another operation, so I can't take them out for you. You'll find them in the inside pocket."

David transferred the yellow packet to the inside pocket of his own coat. He had thanked the surgeon and said good-bye, when the fear seized him that perhaps the dead woman might after all not be Lillian Drew. He turned back and asked if he might see the body. The surgeon led him into the operating-room where two attendants were starting to push out a wheeled operating-table, burdened with a sheeted figure. The surgeon stopped them, and at his order a nurse drew back the sheet from the head. David gave a single glance at the face. His fear left him.

With the letters buttoned inside his coat he left the hospital and set out for Helen's, on whom he had promised to call that afternoon. At this moment he had not for Lillian Drew that understanding, sympathy even, which he was later to attain; he did not then consider that she, too, might have had a very different ending had her beginning been more fortunately inspired. For such a sympathy he was too dazed by the narrowness of his escape from vindication and of the Mission's from destruction. Had the letters been signed by Morton's full name, then the house surgeon, in trying to learn who Philip Morton was, would certainly have started a scandal there would have been no stopping. But now his secret was safe: Lillian Drew would menace him no more, and the two women who knew his story would keep it forever locked in their hearts.

He chanced to reach the Chambers's home at the same moment as Mr. Chambers, who bowed coldly and passed upstairs. As Mr. Chambers went by the drawing-room door he saw Helen and Mr. Allen at the tea-table. He entered and shook hands cordially with Mr. Allen.

"How are you, Allen?" he said. "But I just stopped for a second. I'll try and see you before you go."

At this moment a footman handed Helen David's card. "Don't you think, Helen," her father asked quietly, "that you're letting that fellow make himself very much of a bore?" Without waiting for an answer he passed out.

"Will you show Mr. Aldrich up," Helen said to the waiting footman. Mr. Allen had begun, before her father's entrance, to draw near the question he had come to put. She shrunk from answering it, so David's coming was doubly welcome.

"A minute, please," Mr. Allen called to the servant. "Now, Helen, is this treating me fair?" he demanded in a whisper. "You know I want to see you. Can't you send down word that you're engaged?"

"He's in the house—I'm here—I can't deny him," she said rapidly. "Besides, for a long while I've been wanting you to meet him. Show him up, Mitchell."

"Well, if I must meet him, I suppose I must," Allen said with a shrug, sharpness cutting through his even tone. "But I warn you, Helen—I'm going to outstay him."

A moment later David entered the room. He was crossing eagerly with a hand held out to Helen, when he saw Allen beside the tea-table. He suddenly paused. Allen slowly rose, and for a space the two men stared at each other.

"So," Allen said, with slow distinctness, "You're Mr. David Aldrich?"

David went pale. He knew, from what Helen had told him of Allen, that he was in the power of a man whose ideas of justice and duty made him merciless. For a moment David had, as on the night Allen had forced him to unmask, a glimpse of the inside of a cell.

"I am," he said.

Helen had looked from one to the other in surprise. "What—you know each other?"

David turned to her. "You remember I told you that about a year ago I broke into a man's house. It was his house."

"What!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, your protÉgÉ is a thief!"

There was a vibration of triumph in Allen's voice. An old idea had flashed back upon him. He had often thought that if he could, by some striking example, show Helen the futility of her work, show her that the people whom she thought were improving were really deceiving her, then her belief in her efforts would be shattered and she would abandon them—would come nearer to him. This man Aldrich here summed up to her the success of her ideas.

"I think I shall leave you for a while," Allen said.

He moved toward the door.

David knew where Allen was going. Helpless to save himself, he stood motionless, erect, and watched Allen start from the room.

Helen, very pale, blocked Allen's way. "You intend to have him arrested. It's in your face."

"I certainly do."

"You must not!" cried Helen, desperately. "Why, he took nothing—you yourself told me he took nothing."

"That doesn't make him any less a thief," returned Allen. "He had good reason for not taking anything—he was frightened away."

He started to pass around her, but she caught his arm. "You must not! You'll be committing a crime!"

He looked at her almost pitingly. "Really, Helen, he must have hypnotised you. You know he's a thief. I caught him in the act; he's confessed to you. What more can you want?"

She gazed steadily up into his face. "Won't you let him go if I assure you that in arresting him you'll be making the mistake of your life?"

"No. Because I know that you, in believing that, are mistaken."

She was silent a moment; her brown eyes never left his face. "Won't you let him go because I, a friend, ask it as a favour?"

"You are making it very hard for me," he said in genuine distress. "You know it's a duty to society to put such men where they can do no harm."

"Nothing can prevent your arresting him?" she asked slowly.

"It's my duty," he said.

Her face was turning gray with despair, when her eyes began to widen and her lips to part, and she drew in a long, slow breath and one hand crept up to her bosom. She looked about at David.

"Will you please wait for me in the library," she said; and she added immediately to Allen, "I'll give you bond for his return when you want him."

David bowed and left the room.

Helen caught the back of a chair. The hand above her heart pressed tightly. "You have left me but one thing more to say for him," she said in a low voice.

"And that?" asked Allen.

"I love him."

He stepped back and his face went as pale as her own. Several moments passed before words came from him.

"You love Mr. Aldrich?" asked a strange whisper.

"I love him," she said.

Again several moments passed before he spoke, and when he did speak his words were to himself rather than to her.

"And this is my answer?"

"Forgive me—because it came this way," she begged.

There was silence between them.

"He is safe," he said. He continued gazing at her several moments, then without speaking again he left the room.