"When will you make the avowal of your change of heart?"

"To-night, at the People's mass meeting in the Criterion theatre."

A glimmer of admiration sparkled in the old man's eye as he reached for the button beside his desk, but the glimmer softened to something closely akin to affection as a door opened nearby and the slender figure of a young girl stepped out. As she approached Hammond stared and started as though the wraith of his departed honor had danced before his vision, and as he continued to gaze, an irrepressible admiration that was suddenly stirred in him seemed to melt almost into affection. There was nothing about her that was suggestive of association with the type of men who daily frequented this office; rather she was quite the antithesis of these, suggesting character, refinement, education and the essence of pure womanhood. She was not overpoweringly beautiful but from out of the fine meshed frame of wavy chestnut hair there appeared a face of which the win

combined well with the witchery of her figure. A glance at her was a revelation; a long look engendered danger to the heart of the chaste beholder and Hammond was still staring hard when she stepped over to the desk.

"Miss Marion," said the Boss in a tone that caused Hammond to glare at him. "I want you to drop a line to the leaders and tell them to meet me here to-night at eleven o'clock. That's all. Oh! I want to present to you Mr. Hammond, formerly of the People's party. He's coming with us. This young lady, Hammond, is the only stenographer in the state who can take a message and forget it as soon as she has despatched it."

Like a caress, Hammond's glance rested on the dark tresses as she slightly inclined her head in acknowledgement of the introduction and when, a half an hour later, the bargain made, he left his soul in the possession of the politician, his heart was every whit as much in the possession of the private. stenographer. As he walked up the

street his truant thoughts dwelt not so much on the great sacrifice he had made to enter the political arena as on an eloquent pair of slate grey eyes which seemed to have awakened a longing greater even than his ambitions.

That night a mass meeting of the People's party had been advertised for one of the theatres of the fourth ward and, as Hammond was scheduled to speak, the audience was composed mainly of his adherents from the third, fourth and fifth wards. The news of his break with the party was known only to a few of the heads who, hoping that they might keep the attorney's support, had thought best to keep the matter quiet until he took steps against them. Oysting was the only one of these who was present and a smile of satisfaction passed over his features when he saw Hammond take his place on the platform. Oysting and several of the others had spoken when Hammond's name was mentioned, and the applause that greeted him as he came to the front of the stage plainly displayed the feelings of his audience towards him. He was their favorite. Understanding them, he always said things that they understood; when he promised better pavements in Aisquith street, the people got better pavements; when he said that electric lights would be placed at the corner of the alleys, they were put there. He never promised great things, but when he said his party would do a thing he saw that it was done and, more than that, he mingled with his constituents at their socials and picnics after election as well as before.

He bowed smilingly in acknowledgement of their applause and when he began to speak the men stopped smoking to listen. They laughed at his opening story; they cheered his personal sallies at some of their prominent men; they yelled wildly when he skilfully praised their desire for the best government and their loyalty to their candidates, and they leaned over the seats in front to listen when he bent over the speaker's table and impressively raised his long forefinger.

tion had occasioned some reference to her mother by him. "My mother died. when I was a very little girl," she told him simply, and that was the only time the subject was ever mentioned between them. She refreshed him mentally and made up for the loss of his intimates; more than that he did not desire. Their friendship was always pleasantly informal. In addressing him she laughingly called him "Mr. Assessor," and in turn he named her his "Goddess of the Machine," for short, "Goddess."

Thus they grew together, neither trying to analyze the feelings which existed beneath the surface of friendship, each glad when enjoying the companionship of the other.

Late one evening in the Fall, Hammond leaped up the imposing marble steps of the Francis mansion, pressed the button, and finding the door slightly ajar strode in without waiting for the butler. He went up the thickly carpeted staircase three steps at a time and was on his way back to the spacious study at the rear of the second floor when, on glancing into the room beyond, he saw a sight that made him stagger. There, at that hour, in a flowing dressing gown was Miss Marion, her upturned face between the hands of the politician who kissed her as she stood there. A horrible, revolting suspicion tore its way through the brain of Hammond like a dumdum bullet, and an impulse came over him to rush in and kill the man. He knew Francis to be all that was unscrupulous in politics, but this-somehow in his lowest estimate of him he had never accused him of this.

"Good-night, Boss," she was saying as she pinched his cheek.

"Good-night, Maid Marion," smiled the inan, and then dullv realizing that the relations of each was the same to the other, Hammond stole unsteadily down the staircase.

His ring had not awakened the but ler and he stood irresolutely on the front steps thoughtfully pondering the

scene which he had witnessed. He could not reconcile his thoughts to what he had just seen. It seemed impossible in this man he had come to know so well and in this girl he had come to-to like so well. Thoughts of the past few months flew through his mind like faces in a car window; his first meeting with the girl, their frequent association, her continual alertness, her knowledge, her womanliness, her-innocence. He squared his shoulders with a sharp jerk. His ambitions were to succeed in politics, not to act as an amusement for strange women, and he gave the bell a long, loud ring. A few minutes later, after his card had preceded him, he was ushered into the study of the politician.

"You're up late, Hammond," said the latter, as he looked questioningly across his desk.

"Yes," returned the attorney, "I've got something on my mind that isn't exactly conducive to sound sleep. Talbot and O'Gorman are going to bolt."

The Boss's eyelids narrowed as he leaned forward and looked piercingly at the younger man

"Talbot and O'Gorman?" he queried, slowly.

"Talbot and O'Gorman and your son, Henry."

"My son, Hen- You lie!"

Hammond bent over the desk until his face was within a foot of the other's.

"Francis, I'll throw you through that window if you don't take that back,” he menaced.

"All right, I take it back. Now prove to me that you don't."

"The three came to me an hour ago and offered me the commissionership if I'd go with them. From what they say, the Reforms will go with them. If Henry breaks and decries you with the others it will give them strength. He is bitter about that license board place you refused him, and the others have convinced him that your reign. will come to an abrupt finish with this election, so Henry wants to be on his feet when you fall."

"Hammond, I trust you implicitly.

You really know this? They came to you? Tell me, was my son with them when they called, Hammond?" "Yes."

"You swear it?"

"Have I ever lied to you?" broke out the lawyer. "Would there be anything for me to gain in a lie like this?" Francis dropped limply into his chair.

"Henry, my own son," he repeated, feebly. "I made Jim Talbot, put him where he is and kept him there; O'Gorman, too, though he always had to be whipped into line, but my boy, Harry!" With his head between his hands the Boss sat there. His mastery was gone, his fierceness shattered, and as Hammond eyed him bowed and thinking, he appeared a senile, broken down old man whose reign had indeed tottered. A suspicion born that hour kept the younger man from sympathizing with him, but he could not keep back a wave of pity as he watched the bent figure.

At last he raised his head. His face was white and set.

"Hammond," he said in a tone of quiet decision, "call up the morning papers and tell them to send their political men up here. Then call up Loden of the Reforms. We'll renounce them first and beat them with their own cards."

On returning from the telephone Hammond picked up his hat but the other motioned him to a seat.

I

"You're not going yet," he said quietly, as Hammond slipped into an armchair. "I have a story to tell you. "Thirty-five years ago I went into politics somewhat as you started. learned the rules of the game in my class at college, but when I began it was with principles as clean as yours were. I entered civic strife at a time when we voted with a pistol in the right hand and a ballot in the left. For ten years I played a losing game with the best men in the city, then the chance came to join the others with personal profit to myself. Sick of always being on the losing side and firmly resolving to turn honest later on, I

changed. My former friends I betrayed outright into the hands of my former foes. I changed my religion as a means to gain power. A man's soul I never considered where his vote was concerned.

"When I was still honestly striving I married the love of my youth, a pure girl who had a beautiful faith in my uprightness. We had three sons. They grew up under their mother's influence until their father changed. Then they took their coloring from his associates and from his character. The oldest fell from the window of his hotel during an orgy with women of the street. One of them is to-day responsible for a suicide a week at a racetrack which is 'protected' by my methods of politics. Henry, who runs the biggest distillery in the state, because the saloons to which I give Sunday freedom buy his whiskey, spends three months of the year in a sanatorium. How much affection he has for his father is evident from what you have seen to-night. We had another child, a daughter, whom I have kept away at school most of the time in order that she shouldn't find out just what her father is. She is what her mother was before I broke her heart by my political dealings, and she is the only person in this whole world who has one drop of genuine affection for James T. Francis. That is the story. of a man who started into false politics hoping to turn true as you are hoping.

"Hammond, by trampling on the hearts of men I have come nearer and nearer the goal of my hopes, but always farther and farther from the goal of my earlier resolves. To-day I have affluence and influence, but honor I have not nor can I get it. Without that life's whole game isn't worth the shadow the candle throws. In the beginning I meant well; hell is paved with a highroad of my good intentions, but over this road my evil acts go rumbling on in an endless procession. To try and redeem these acts is hopeless now. Their taint is not only in the blood of the men that I have corrupted, it is ulcerating the blood of the sons.