Clayton gleefully learned that
the weekly "report" of one or the other of the Fidelity Company's
men consisted of a morose shake of the head and the single word,
"Nothing!"

The cashier laughed at Emil's report of Wade's accidentally overheard
angry growl, "Where the devil does he keep himself, any way?"

For Love had taught Clayton a strange, new craft, and he easily
outwitted the two brutes who always came to "report" during his
bank absences, and had vainly rifled his deserted rooms during his
long Sunday and evening absences.

There was no tell-tale clue in the lonely apartment, where the dust
of many long weeks had gathered in Arthur Ferris' vacant rooms.

Unable to absent himself on the near approach of the great annual
settlement, driven at last to extremity, Randall Clayton arranged
his last meeting with Irma, before the return of Ferris and
Witherspoon, at Manhattan Beach.

For the summer boats were already running, and, on the broad piazzas
of the Oriental they could safely meet.

It was so easy for Madame Raffoni to pilot the incognito diva by
the railway to the Manhattan Hotel. A double veil and a judiciously
fringed sunshade would make Irma Gluyas impregnable to the flaneur.

"Alas! The days of Aranjuez are over," sighed Clayton, for this
tryst of Thursday was to be followed by the election on Friday.

As yet Arthur Ferris had given no sign of his impending arrival.
Some gloomy foreboding weighed down Randall Clayton's soul with a
fear of coming disaster. He felt how powerless he was in the hands
of the cruel conspirators who had robbed him of his fortune.

He never doubted that Senator Durham and the treacherous Ferris
both possessed Hugh Worthington's dastardly secret, and that they
all stood ready to crush him.

The innocent four-line advertisement of the annual election had
been duly inserted in the obscure corners of certain fourth-class
journals, "as required by law."

There was an oily grin upon Robert Wade's self-satisfied face,
and, with no single word from Worthington or Ferris, Clayton felt
the toils closing around him. He was left out of the game--a mere
poor pawn.

It was on the night before his five-o'clock tryst at the Manhattan,
when Clayton suddenly sprang from his chair. "By God! I have it!" he
cried. "Old Wade has failed to trap me. Ferris, the smug scoundrel,
will glide back here and try to steal into my intimacy. He can post
his slyly posted spies. I cannot then k