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She was still pale, and replied nervously, “Mr. Bennett came in about quarter to ten. He stopped to talk to me and looked about the room curiously. Do you know, I felt very uncomfortable for a time. Then he locked the door leading from the press bureau to his office, and left word that he was not to be disturbed. A few minutes later a man called.”

“Yes, yes,” prompted Kennedy. “Hanford, no doubt.”

She was racing on breathlessly, scarcely giving one a chance to inquire how she had learned so much.

“Why,” she cried with a sort of defiant ring in her tone, “Mr. Travis is going to buy those pictures after all. And the worst of it is that I met him in the hall coming in as I was coming down here, and he tried to act toward me in the same old way and that after all I know now about him. They have fixed it all up, Mr. Bennett acting for Mr. Travis, and this Mr. Hanford. They are even going to ask me to carry the money in a sealed envelope to the studio of this fellow Hanford, to be given to a third person who will be there at two o’clock this afternoon.”

“You, Miss Ashton?” inquired Kennedy, a light breaking on his face as if at last he saw something.

“Yes, I,” she repeated. “Hanford insisted that it was part of the compact. They – they haven’t asked me openly yet to be the means of carrying out their dirty deals, but when they do, I won’t – “

“Miss Ashton,” remonstrated Kennedy, “I beg you to be calm. I had no idea you would take it like this, no idea. Please, please. Walter, you will excuse us if we take a turn down the corridor and out in the air. This is most extraordinary.”

For five or ten minutes Kennedy and Miss Ashton appeared to be discussing the new turn of events earnestly, while I waited impatiently. As they approached again she seemed calmer, but I heard her say, “I hope you’re right. I’m all broken up by it. I’m ready to resign. My faith in human nature is shaken. No, I won’t expose Wesley Travis for his sake. It cuts me to have to admit it, but Cadwalader used always to say that every man has his price. I am afraid this will do great harm to the cause of reform and through it to the woman suffrage cause which cast its lot with this party. I – I can hardly believe”

Kennedy was still looking earnestly at her. “Miss Ashton,” he implored, “believe nothing. Remember one of the first rules of politics is loyalty. Wait until “

“Wait?” she echoed. “How can I? I hate Wesley Travis for giving in – more than I hate Cadwalader Brown for his cynical disregard of honesty in others.”

She bit her lip at thus betraying her feelings, but what she had heard had evidently affected her deeply. It was as though the feet of her idol had turned to clay. Nevertheless it was evident that she was coming to look on it more as she would if she were an outsider.

“Just think it over,” urged Kennedy. “They won’t ask you right away. Don’t do anything rash. Suspend judgment. You won’t regret it.”

Craig’s next problem seemed to be to transfer the scene of his operations to Hanford’s studio. He was apparently doing some rapid thinking as we walked uptown after leaving Miss Ashton, and I did not venture to question him on what had occurred when it was so evident that everything depended on being prepared for what was still to occur.

Hanford was out. That seemed to please Kennedy, for with a brightening face, which told more surely than words that he saw his way more and more clearly, he asked me to visit the agent and hire the vacant office next to the studio while he went uptown to complete his arrangements for the final step.