d all
he had turned in to her was that he suspected secret relations between
Blake and Peck. Furthermore, the man she loved--for yes, she loved him
still--was in jail, his candidacy collapsed, the cause for which he
stood a ruin. And last of all, the city, to the music of its own
applause, was about to be colossally swindled.

A dark prospect indeed. But as she sat alone in the night, the cheers
for Blake floating in to her, she desperately determined to renew her
fight. Five days still remained before election, and in five days one
might do much; during those five days her ships might still come home
from sea. She summoned her courage, and gripped it fiercely. "I'll do
my best! I'll do my best!" she kept breathing throughout the night.
And her determination grew in its intensity as she realized the sum of
all the things for which she fought, and fought alone.

She was fighting to save her father, she was fighting to save the
city, she was fighting to save the man she loved.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LAST STAND

The next morning Katherine, incited by the desperate need of action,
was so bold as to request Mr. Manning to meet her at Old Hosie's. She
was fortunate enough to get into the office without being observed.
The old lawyer, in preparation for the conference, had drawn his
wrinkled, once green shade as far down as he dared without giving
cause for suspicion, and before the window had placed a high-backed
chair and thrown upon it a greenish, blackish, brownish veteran of a
fall overcoat--thus balking any glances that might rove lazily upward
to his office.

Old Hosie raised his lean figure from his chair and shook her hand, at
first silently. He, too, was dazed by the collapse of Bruce's
fortunes.

"Things certainly do look bad," he said slowly. "I never suspected
that his case would suddenly stand on its head like that."

"Nor did I--though from the beginning I had an instinctive feeling
that it was too good, too easy, to be true."

"And to think that after all we know the boy is right!" groaned the
old man.

"That's what makes the whole affair so tantalizing. We know he is
right--we know my father is innocent--we know the danger the city is
in--we know Mr. Blake's guilt--we know just what his plans are. We
know everything! But we have not one jot of evidence that would be
believed by the public. The irony of it! To think, for all our
knowledge, we can only look helplessly on and watch Mr. Blake suc