"It is the most successful trick ever perpetrated," announced the _Atlas_, "and one no sane man would ever have admitted possible. The mayor has not seen a human being, except Miss Snow, nor heard any other human voice for ten days. No detective has yet found who sent her the message signed by Newton Fitzgerald, nor can they discover who was at the elevator to receive them when they mounted to their place of concealment, the regular incumbent having already proved an alibi. They met in the drug-store, but no one recognized or noticed them. The plot was carefully laid and successfully carried out, By whom, is at present, a mystery." By nine o'clock the Mayor was at her desk, with Mary Snow in her office. Friends tried to deter her, on the plea of needed rest, but she only laughed at them. "Rest? What else have I done but rest, for ten days past?" she asked. "Worry, I should hope," answered her cousin Jessica. "I'm sure the rest are nearly worn out with worrying about you." "I didn't worry--not so very much," said Gertrude. "I felt sure we were confined only to make me resign--or to give them a chance at the mayor's office, to get some nefarious contract through, or to secrete evidence in the street railway case, and I'm in a hurry to get down there and find out just what they have been doing." "We felt sure our kidnapers wouldn't dare to do us any real harm," added Mary. "They've seen that we had plenty to eat and we have not suffered in any way. As Gertrude says, we've done nothing but rest." "Well, I suppose you'll have to go then," said Jessica. "But you'll just have to hold a reception all day. Every man, woman and child will be there to shake hands with you and congratulate you." But the citizens did not wait for them to reach their office. Before Gertrude's carriage appeared in the square in front of the city hall, the citizens had unharnessed the horses and were drawing her, as if she had been some princess royal and they her subjects. Men that voted against her, men that had denounced her in private and public, joined the procession and helped to give her such a welcome as to bring tears to her eyes and choke her utterance. When they reached the square, it was full of the surging, shouting populace who crowded about, seizing her hands and demonstrating in every possible way their joy at her return. If any of her captors had been looking on, he could not have doubted whether the town would be friendly to him just then. They reached the City Hall at last, but even then, the mayor was not allowed to get out. "Speech, speech," they were crying all about her; and Gertrude stood up, choking back her tears and trying to speak. This was what it meant to reach the popular heart, at last.