won't hurt me much after all. I
guess I haven't much reputation to lose. But as for you, who started
this business--you the pure, moral, high-minded reformer----"

He interrupted himself by raising a hand.

"Listen!"

Faintly, from the direction of the Square, came the dim roar of
cheering, and then the outburst of the band. Blind Charlie, with a
cynical laugh, clapped a hand upon Blake's shoulder.

"Don't you hear 'em, Blake? Brace up! The people still are for you!"

Blake did not reply. The old man bent down, his face now wholly hard.

"And anyhow, Blake, I'm getting this satisfaction out of the business.
I've had it in for you for a dozen years, and now you're going to get
it good and plenty! Good night and to hell with you!"

Blake did not look up. Manning slipped an arm through the old man's.

"I'll go along with you for a little while," said Manning quietly.
"Just to see that you don't start any trouble."

As the pair were going out Mr. Brown, who had thus far not said a
single word, bent his fatherly figure over Blake.

"Of course, you realize, Mr. Blake, that our relations are necessarily
at an end," he said in a low voice.

"Of course," Blake said dully.

"I'm very sorry we cannot help you, but of course you realize we
cannot afford to be involved in a mess like this. Good night." And he
followed the others out, Old Hosie behind him.

For a space Katherine stood alone, gazing down upon Blake's bowed and
silent figure. Now that it was all over, now that his allies had all
deserted him, to see this man whom she had known as so proud, so
strong, so admired, with such a boundless future--who had once been
her own ideal of a great man--who had once declared himself her
lover--to see this man now brought so low, stirred in her a strange
emotion, in which there was something of pity, something of sympathy,
and a tugging remembrance of the love he long ago had offered.

But the noise of the front door closing upon the men recalled her to
herself, and very softly, so as not to disturb him, she started away.
Her hand was on the knob, when there sounded a dry and husky voice
from behind her.

"Wait, Katherine! Wait!"

CHAPTER XXVI

AN IDOL'S FALL

She turned. Blake had risen from his chair.

"What is it?" she asked.

He came up to her, the proofs still in his hands. He was unsteady upon
his feet, like a man dizzy from a heavy blow. The face which she had
been accustomed to see only as fu