have got to pay."

Herman went back to the sink, slowly.

"That is right. It is the Spencers," he muttered.

Rudolph went out. Late in the evening he came back, with the news that
the search was on. And, knowing Herman's pride, he assured him that the
hill need never learn of Anna's flight, and if any inquiries came he
advised him to say the girl was sick.

In Rudolph's twisted mind it was not so much Anna's delinquency that
enraged him. The hill had its own ideas of morality. But he was fiercely
jealous, with that class-jealousy which was the fundamental actuating
motive of his life. He never for a moment doubted that she had gone to
Graham.

And, sitting by the fire in the little house, old Herman's untidy head
shrunk on his shoulders, Rudolph almost forgot Anna in plotting to use
this new pawn across the hearth from him in his game of destruction.

By the end of the week, however, there was no news of Anna. She had not
returned to the mill. Rudolph's friend on the detective force had found
no clew, and old Herman had advanced from brooding by the fire to long
and furious wanderings about the city streets.

He felt no remorse, only a growing and alarming fury. He returned at
night, to his cold and unkempt house, to cook himself a frugal and
wretched meal. His money had run very low, and with true German
stubbornness he refused to draw any from the savings bank.

Rudolph was very busy. There were meetings always, and to the little
inner circle that met behind Gus's barroom one night later in March, he
divulged the plan for the destruction of the new Spencer munition plant.

"But--will they take him back?" one of the men asked. He was of better
class than the rest, with a military bearing and a heavy German accent,
for all his careful English.

"Will a dog snatch at a bone?" countered Rudolph. "Take him back!
They'll be crazy about it."

"He has been there a long time. He may, at the last, weaken."

But Rudolph only laughed, and drank more whisky of the German agent's
providing.

"He won't weaken," he said. "Give me a few days more to find the girl,
and all hell won't hold him."

On the Sunday morning after the President had been before Congress, he
found Herman dressed for church, but sitting by the fire. All around
him lay the Sunday paper, and he barely raised his head when Rudolph
entered.

"Well, it's here!" said Rudolph.

"It has come. Yes."

"Wall Street will be opening champagne to-day."