ce of the district
attorney she possessed an intimate and respectful knowledge. It was
not to be considered that against the prosecuting attorney such a woman
would wage war. So the thought that upon his person any assault was
meditated Wharton dismissed as unintelligent. That it was upon his
reputation the attack was planned seemed much more probable. But that
contingency he had foreseen and so, he believed, forestalled. There then
remained only the possibility that the offer in the letter was genuine.
It seemed quite too good to be true. For, as he asked himself, on the
very eve of an election, why should Tammany, or a friend of Tammany,
place in his possession the information that to the Tammany candidate
would bring inevitable defeat. He felt that the way they were playing
into his hands was too open, too generous. If their object was to lead
him into a trap, of all baits they might use the promise to tell him who
killed Banf was the one certain to attract him. It made their invitation
to walk into the parlor almost too obvious. But were the offer not
genuine, there was a condition attached to it that puzzled him. It was
not the condition that stipulated he should come alone. His experience
had taught him many will confess, or betray, to the district attorney
who, to a deputy, will tell nothing. The condition that puzzled him was
the one that insisted he should come at once or it would be "too late."

Why was haste so imperative? Why, if he delayed, would he be "too late"?
Was the man he sought about to escape from his jurisdiction, was he
dying, and was it his wish to make a death-bed confession; or was he so
reluctant to speak that delay might cause him to reconsider and remain
silent?

With these questions in his mind, the minutes quickly passed, and it
was with a thrill of excitement Wharton saw that Nolan had left the
Zoological Gardens on the right and turned into the Boston Road. It had
but lately been completed and to Wharton was unfamiliar. On either side
of the unscarred roadway still lay scattered the uprooted trees and
boulders that had blocked its progress, and abandoned by the contractors
were empty tar-barrels, cement-sacks, tool-sheds, and forges. Nor
was the surrounding landscape less raw and unlovely. Toward the Sound
stretched vacant lots covered with ash heaps; to the left a few old and
broken houses set among the glass-covered cold frames of truck-farms.

The district attorney felt a sudden tw