Mrs. Whitney stepped to the edge of the platform. "Senator Randall Foster has very kindly consented to address us tonight," she said. "So distinguished a lawmaker needs no introduction to this organization. Mr.

Senator," as Foster entered through the door held open for him by Vincent, "we invite you to the platform."

Bowing his thanks, Foster joined Mrs. Whitney and immediately began one of those adroit, well-worded addresses which had made him a marked man in the Senate. "I come to you a special pleader," he continued, with growing earnestness, "to spread the gospel of peace. It is your privilege to weld public opinion, and opinion can be as a yoke upon a man's neck. In this free America opinion governs. Jingoes would try to plunge us into war. When a boy is given an airgun, his first impulse is to go out and shoot it off. Arm the men of this country and their impulse will be the same. A small standing army does not tend to militarism; its size does not lend itself to the issuing of imperative mandates; and mandates, ladies, lead to war.

"It is especially a woman's duty to demand peace. In war, upon the woman falls the suffering and the sacrifice. The lover, the brother, the father, the son may find honorable death upon the field, but at home the woman pays. God pity the woman left desolate and alone, her loved ones sacrificed on the altar of militarism!

"And mothers? What of your children and the fate of yet unborn generations? Are they brought into the world to be tools of militarism?

Lift up your voice for peace; carry the message, 'Peace on earth' to the very portals of Congress. Make any and every sacrifice, but guard your man child."

As Foster stopped speaking enthusiastic applause broke out, and a rising vote of thanks was given him. As the gratified Senator stepped down from the platform he found himself by Miss Kiametia's side.

"I did it to please you, Kiametia," he whispered, holding her hand tightly. "Have I earned one kind word?"

Miss Kiametia favored him with a quick expressive look and a faint blush.

"You are a staunch friend," she said warmly, and Foster brightened.

"Only--only why did you lay such stress on the 'man child'? Nearly all are spinsters in this peace organization."

CHAPTER XI

A MAN IN A HURRY

Heavy clouds hung low and not a star was visible. The darkness was intensified by the gleam of distant city lights, for in that section of Washington lying to the southwest of Pennsylvania Avenue a defective fuse had caused the dimming of every electric light in the vicinity. Far up on one of the roofs a man, crouching behind the meager shelter offered by a chimney, blessed the chance which fortune provided.

Crawling on hands and knees, he cautiously made his way to the edges of the roof, on which he had dropped from the higher building next door, and looked down. His eyes straining in the darkness, every sense alert to danger, he scanned intently each window ledge and cornice. No hope there.

Not even a lead pipe or telephone wires afforded a hold for desperate, gripping fingers. Unlike the building adjoining on the south, the new house had no party wall, and a gulf too wide to jump separated it from its northern neighbor. The sheer drop to the garden beneath was suicidal.

The man lay for a few seconds striving to collect himself. He could not return the way he had come. He would be caught like a rat in the trap with the arrival of dawn, if not before. Perhaps his pursuers were on his trail already. The thought spurred his numbed body to action, and lifting his head he glanced along the flat roof. Toward the center of it rose a box-like structure with apparently an arched skylight above it. A little distance away from the structure, he distinguished the outlines of what appeared to be a scuttle. Warily he approached it, and using every precaution to make the least possible sound, he attempted to raise the scuttle. A long sigh of relief escaped him as he succeeded. The scuttle was not locked.

He paused long enough to glance keenly about him. There was no sign of another human being, but a sound smote his ear. Someone was moving on the pebbled roof of the building he had just left. Without an instant's delay he groped about until his feet touched the rung of a ladder, and drawing to the scuttle behind him, he made his way down the ladder.

On reaching the bottom he paused in indecision. He could make out nothing in the inky blackness, and with every sense alive to danger, he waited.

But apparently his entrance had disturbed no one, and taking heart of grace, he pulled out a tiny flashlight and pressed the button.

The light revealed a large attic partly filled with trunks and worn furniture. A large wine closet, the bottles shining as the light fell on them through the slat partition, occupied one part of the attic, while a wall partition, with closed door, ran across the entire western side. To his right, the man made out the head of a narrow staircase. He was making his way to the staircase when his acute hearing caught the sound of a softly closing door on the floor below and approaching footsteps.

Casting a hunted look about him, he spied a closed closet door. He doused his light while making his way to the closet, and jerked open the door, at the same time throwing out his right hand, the better to judge the depth of the dark closet. His groping fingers closed on cold steel. His heart lost a throb, then raced madly on, as he clung weakly to the metal.

An elevator shaft, and he had mistaken it for prison bars!

For a second his chilled body was shaken with hysterical desire for laughter; then his strong will conquered. He had not forgotten the advancing footsteps. A desperate situation required desperate chances.

Stepping back he closed the outer door of the elevator shaft and pressed the button for the elevator. Which would reach him first--the person creeping upstairs or the automatic electric elevator?

CHAPTER XII

A SINISTER DISCOVERY

Mrs. Whitney sat up in bed and contemplated her husband reproachfully as he entered her room.

"Have you been working all night?" she inquired.

Whitney nodded absently as he stooped to kiss her. "Now, don't worry, dear; work will not injure me. I've just had a cold shower and feel ten per cent better, and all ready for my breakfast. You are the one who looks tired; that's a very becoming cap you are wearing, but you need more color here," pinching her cheek. "I don't like to see you so pale.

Were the Sisters in Unity as strenuous as ever?"

"Just about--but, Oh, Winslow, I was elected...."

"That was a foregone conclusion, you modest child." Again Whitney kissed her. "Congratulations, my darling, though why you should want it...."

Mrs. Whitney laughed good-naturedly. "I'm too happy today to argue the question," she broke in.

"Kiametia Grey frightened us all last night by fainting ..."

"Fainting! Kiametia? I thought she was as tough as a horse?"

"So she is usually, but she has been doing too much socially, and late hours do not agree with a woman of her years."

"She isn't so old," protested Whitney.

"She is older than I, and I'm not so young," Mrs. Whitney, whose years sat lightly upon her, jerked a dainty dressing-gown about her shoulders.

"Kiametia did faint and when she came to, declared it was the overheated atmosphere of the rooms and the continuous talking which had upset her."

"Well, you must admit, Minna, the Sisters are famous for noisy discussions. Kiametia is generally able to hold up her end of an argument. I am sorry she had to give in to superior numbers," Whitney laughed. "You'll never convince me that she fainted."

"She did, too; and felt so badly that I persuaded her not to go home, but to spend the remainder of the night in our blue bedroom."

"Good heavens!" Whitney gazed blankly at his wife. "Did she--did ..."

"No, she did not stay there," pausing dramatically. "She found Sinclair Spencer sound asleep in the bed." She waited expectantly for her husband's comment, but getting no reply, she burst out, "What was he doing there--how came he to be there?"

"I was foolish enough to offer him whiskey." Her husband seated himself carefully on the edge of the bed, "Spencer had been drinking before he came to see me, and a very little more made him tipsy. I was fearful that if I took him downstairs he would try and break up your meeting, so persuaded him to go and lie down on the bed in the blue room."

"Sometimes, Winslow, for a thoughtful man, you ball things up dreadfully," sighed Mrs. Whitney. "Why did you select that room? You always put your friends in the hall bedroom."

"Never gave the matter of the rooms a thought." Whitney moved restlessly; he hated to see a woman cry, and his wife looked perilously upon the point of tears. In spite of his assertion that he did not miss the loss of sleep, his nerves were not under full control. Ordinarily not a drinking man, he had stopped on his way from his bedroom to help himself to the small amount of Scotch left in the bottle.

"Such a scene as I had with Kiametia," groaned Mrs. Whitney sighing dismally at the recollection. "Finally, I convinced her that I knew nothing of Mr. Spencer's presence, and she consented to sleep in the hall bedroom."

"I'm glad Kiametia discovered Spencer in time." His chuckle developing into a laugh, Whitney rose and walked to the door. "It's no crying matter, my dear. Kiametia will be the first to enjoy the joke."

"If it had been anyone but Sinclair Spencer!" Mrs. Whitney shook her head forlornly. "She has developed an intense dislike for him."