"See here, old fellow, you are a Congressman, but it will be some time before you go to Washington, and if you can get a hold there, perhaps you too can make a strike. All those fellows get rich, and Walter Mannis will look out for number one. Oh, if I can only capture Belle Hamblin, and take her to Washington as my wife, what a brilliant couple we will make, for I flatter myself I am not bad-looking. Ah, Mannis, you are an egotistical fellow. Egad! But how can you help it? I vow I will go to Cleverdale to-morrow, see Hamblin, and again urge my suit. What would the old man think if he knew of that note his name is on! But, pshaw, he will never know of it. I shall get it out of the way somehow, and at once." He was interrupted by a servant entering and handing him a note, which he hastily tore open. As he read it a shade of anger crossed his countenance. "Confound that girl!" he said. "She thinks I will marry her, does she? She doesn't know me. I must get rid of her some way; but how? That's the question. Let me think." Dropping into a chair and passing his hand across his brow, he was engaged in deep thought for almost ten minutes. Breaking the silence, he said: "Well, I must get her away from here, to begin with. This affair troubles me more than any woman scrape I was ever engaged in. If her father knew about it there would have to be a new election for a Congressman to fill my place. It is a bad go, for I certainly have deceived the girl, and old Harris is a savage fellow, who wouldn't hesitate to pop the man who betrayed his daughter." Mannis, for once, was really troubled. He cared little for the misery he might bring upon others, but he fully realized that his life would be endangered, did his treatment of Mary Harris reach the ears of her father. The poor girl had been deceived by a promise of marriage, and the note Mannis received was an appeal begging him to fulfil his word. The innocent creature was ignorant of the duplicity of the man she had trusted, for although many times before he had crushed young lives as if they were the merest baubles, he had managed to prevent any charges appearing against him. For many minutes his nervous agitation was very great. He tried to drive fear from his mind by reading, but could arouse no interest in his favorite books, for the fear of Mary Harris haunted him, and he trembled for his own personal safety. "This will never do," he suddenly said, "I will go to Cleverdale and visit the Senator, and then make a pilgrimage to the great Babylon, New York, where something must turn up to help me out of my troubles." The same evening found him at Cleverdale, and at a late hour Sargent was with him at the hotel. The precious couple engaged in a game of cards, surrounding themselves with clouds of cigar smoke, and drank champagne as they talked of Alden, and congratulated themselves their plans had worked so well. And yet each in his heart wondered what had become of the victim.