opening," said Manning.

"Yes. And let's use it for all it's worth. Don't you think it would be
best for you to go right back to your hotel, and keep yourself in
sight, so Mr. Peck won't have to lose a second in case he wants to
talk to you again?"

"That's what I had in mind."

"And all day I'll be either in my office, or at home, or at Mrs.
Sherman's. And the minute anything develops, send word to Mr.
Hollingsworth and he'll send word to me."

"I'll not waste a minute," he assured her.

All day she waited with suppressed excitement for good news from
Manning. But the only news was that there was no news. And so on the
second day. And so on the third. Her hopes, that had flared so high,
sunk by slow degrees to mere embers among the ashes. It appeared that
the nibble, which had seemed but the preliminary to swallowing the
bait, was after all no more than a nibble; that the fish had merely
nosed the worm and swum away. In the meantime, while eaten up by the
suspense of this inaction, she was witness to activity of the most
strenuous variety. Never had she seen a man spring up into favour as
did Harrison Blake. His campaign meetings were resumed the very night
of Bruce's conviction; the city crowded to them; the Blake Marching
Club tramped the streets till midnight, with flaming torches, rousing
the enthusiasm of the people with their shouts and campaign songs; and
wherever Blake appeared upon the platform he was greeted by an uproar,
and even when he appeared by daylight, when men's spirits are more
sedate, his progress through the streets was a series of miniature
ovations.

As for Bruce, Katherine saw his power and position crumble so swiftly
that she could hardly see them disappear. The structure of a
tremendous future had stood one moment imposingly before her eyes.
Presto, and it was no more! The sentiment he had roused in favour of
public ownership, and against the regime of Blake, was as a thing that
had never been. With him in jail, his candidacy was but the ashes that
are left by a conflagration--though, to be sure, since the ballots
were already printed, it was too late to remove his name. He was a
thing to be cursed at, jeered at. He had suddenly become a little
lower than nobody, a little less than nothing.

And as for his paper, when Katherine looked at it it made her sick at
heart. Within a day it lost a third in size. Advertisers no longer
dared, perhaps no longer cared, to give it patronage. Its