ose matches. I know Mr. Steele's famous cipher; he showed it to
me a week ago; and so, evidently, do you, in spite of the fact that you
have had barely fifty words with him since he came to the house. Let me
read--ah!--give over that piece of paper you have there, Steele, if you
would not have me think you as great a dastard as we know that Brainard
to be!"

And while his wife drooped before his eyes and a cynical smile crept
about the secretary's fine mouth, he caught up the sheet on which Steele
had been playing tit-tat-to with the child, and glanced from the table
to it and back again to the table on which the matches lay in the
following device, the paper-weight answering for the dot:

7; L;.)7; [-]; ^V. "M," suddenly left the mayor's writhing lips; then
slowly, letter by letter, "E-R-C-Y. Mercy!" he vociferated. "Why does
my wife appeal for mercy to you--a stranger--and in your own cipher!
Miserable woman! What secret's here? Either you are--"

"Hush! some one's at the door!" admonished the secretary.

Mr. Packard turned quickly, and, smoothing his face rapidly, as such men
must, started for the door. Mrs. Packard, flinging her whole soul into
a look, met the secretary's eyes for a moment and then let her head
sink forward on her hands above those telltale matches, from whose
arrangement she had reaped despair in place of hope.

Mr. Steele smiled again, his fine, false smile, but after her head had
fallen; not before. Indeed, he had vouchsafed no reply to her eloquent
look. It was as if it had met marble till her eyes were bidden; then--

But Nixon was in the open doorway and Nixon was speaking:

"A telegram, your Honor."

The old man spoke briskly, even a little crisply--perhaps he always did
when he addressed the mayor. But his eyes roamed eagerly and changed
to a burning, red color when they fell upon the dejected figure of his
mistress. I fancied that, had he dared, he would have leaped into
the room and taken his own part--and who could rightly gage what that
was?--in the scene which may have been far more comprehensive to him
than to me. But he did not dare, and my eyes passed from him to the
mayor.

"From Haines," that gentleman announced, forgetting the suggestive
discovery he had just made in the great and absorbing interest of his
campaign. "'Speech good--great applause becoming thunderous at flash of
your picture. All right so far if--'" he read out, ceasing abruptly at
the "if" which, as I aft