served,
with the earnestness which marked his more serious statements, that it
wouldn't surprise him if young Carter, Hubbell's candidate for mayor,
overturned that autumn the Beatty machine.

"Oh, do you think so!" Alison exclaimed with exhilaration.

"They're frightened and out of breath," said Phil, "they had no idea
that Bedloe would stick after they had licked him in three campaigns.
Two years ago they tried to buy him off by offering to send him to the
Senate, and Wallis Plimpton has never got through his head to this why
he refused."

Plimpton's head, Eleanor declared dryly, was impervious to a certain kind
of idea.

"I wonder if you know, Mr. Hodder, what an admirer Mr. Hubbell is of
yours?" Alison asked. "He is most anxious to have a talk with you."

Hodder did not know.

"Well," said Phil, enthusiastically, to the rector, "that's the best
tribute you've had yet. I can't say that Bedloe was a more unregenerate
heathen than I was, but he was pretty bad."

This led them, all save Hodder, into comments on the character of the
congregation the Sunday before, in the midst of which the rector was
called away to the telephone. Sally Grover had promised to let him know
whether or not they had found Kate Marcy, and his face was grave when he
returned . . . . He was still preoccupied, an hour later, when Alison
arose to go.

"But your carriage isn't here," said Phil, going to the window.

"Oh, I preferred to, walk," she told him, "it isn't far."

III

A blood-red October moon shed the fulness of its light on the silent
houses, and the trees, still clinging to leaf, cast black shadows across
the lawns and deserted streets. The very echoes of their footsteps on
the pavement seemed to enhance the unreality of their surroundings: Some
of the residences were already closed for the night, although the hour
was not late, and the glow behind the blinds of the others was nullified
by the radiancy from above. To Hodder, the sense of their isolation had
never been more complete.

Alison, while repudiating the notion that an escort were needed in a
neighbourhood of such propriety and peace, had not refused his offer to
accompany her. And Hodder felt instinctively, as he took his place
beside her, a sense of climax. This situation, like those of the past,
was not of his own making. It was here; confronting him, and a certain
inevitable intoxication at being once, more alone with her prevented him
from forming any