As John Allingham walked home he lived over again the exciting evening before election. He recalled the moonlit night, the rushing automobile, the ghostly shadows chasing themselves in swift procession ever behind him. He remembered the shock and the overturn and finding himself face to face with Gertrude Van Deusen on the pine-shaded road. He lived again through the rushing ride home, hearing again her silvery voice as she talked, and feeling again the indefinable charm of her presence. He forgot--that she was doing a man's work; he thought only of her femininity and grace and beauty. Then, realizing afresh the calamity that had befallen the city, he groaned aloud. "Oh, my God!" he muttered. "If she is lost--" Then he knew, all suddenly and with a great heartache, that he loved a woman--that she was Gertrude Van Deusen--and that she was lost, and that she might be dead, or in great misery and sorrow. "Good God," he cried, "what can I do to help her?" CHAPTER XIX The Boodlers Score A week later, there was a meeting of the city council, at the mayor's office, called by the chairman of the board of aldermen, to "discuss the unusual state of affairs and find a way out," as Mr. Otis H. Mann put it. Every member was present, and Mr. Mann counted his supporters carefully as he opened the meeting for business. The mayor's friends were strong and outspoken, he decided, but they were not in the majority. He began by making a rather neat speech, deploring the state of things in Roma, and trusting that the citizens' committee, which had been organized the week before for the purpose of discovering the absent officials, would be successful. "A terrible condition of municipal affairs exists," he went on smoothly, "when its chief magistrate can be abducted and kept hidden, without--or with?--her own volition for a whole week. Only in the extravaganzas of modern romance could we look for similar happenings. Just what is our duty in the premises, gentlemen, is a serious question. The citizens' committee has taken the work of restoring our mayor to her place out of our hands; but I think we should assure them of our co-operation and offer to place every means of assistance at their disposal. Will some one make a motion to that effect?" The motion was quickly made and seconded, but before it was put Mr. Turner was on his feet. "I wish to be put on record," he began, "as of the opinion that it is nothing to our credit that the citizens had to call a mass-meeting and form their own committee. We should have led in this work, and if we could not do that, every one of us should have been on the committee. May I inquire why but five of the councilmen are identified with the movement to find Miss Van Deusen and her secretary--to discover the perpetrators of this outrage and bring them to punishment?"