"Because I've found we both love the simple things, the 'home-sweet' things, the enduring things of life," she answered. "Is that why you have been so kind to me?" "Please don't think of it as kindness," she said. She was back in the chair she had left to stand beside the window. "That is why I have arranged to see you as often as I have, if that is what you mean." An impulse overwhelmed his self-imposed restraint. "If anything ever happens to cause you to have doubt in me," he said, earnestly, "will you try to believe that I did what I thought was right?" The nature of his question, its suddenness, astonished her. She moved her lips to speak. "Don't ask me why I asked you that," he said, "but promise me, promise me, that you'll do your best to think of me as doing what I believed was right." "I'm bewildered, but you have my promise," she answered. The clock on the mantel above the fireplace chimed midnight. He rose. "I have been thoughtless," he said. "I had forgotten the time." She walked with him to the door. "Good-night," he said, "and thank you." "Good-night," she said, dropping the hand she had given him to her side. He strode out into the night. Subconsciously he waited for the door to close behind him. Each step took him farther toward the street and yet he did not hear the click of the latch. At the sidewalk he turned to look back. She was standing, framed in the soft light shining through the doorway, looking out at him. He waved his hand. He saw her hand flutter and then the door closed. "'Still my heart has wings,'" he repeated to himself as he turned away. * * * * * The primary election was only two weeks away. Gibson, with the powerful combination of organizations behind him, was swinging into the final lap of his campaign with unabated success. That he would snow the mayor under at the primary was conceded everywhere. Facing humiliation in the most decisive defeat in the history of the city the mayor's organization dwindled down to a few never-say-die supporters whose activities were almost laughable in the prospect of Gibson's overwhelming victory at the polls. To the list of organizations indorsing the police commissioner was added the Anti-Saloon league. Seeking corroboration of the story told them by "Big Jim" Hatch, which they had in affidavit form from "Big Jim" and Mrs. Hatch, John and Brennan visited the downtown apartment house where "Gink" Cummings resided and where Hatch claimed to have seen Gibson. Cautiously they questioned the janitor, the clerk at the desk, the elevator boy and even the proprietor without success. None of them had ever seen a man answering Gibson's description enter the building.