“Oh, she came here, did she?”

“While I was gettin’ breakfast.  She said her name was Eliza Parsons, an’ she was looking fer a job.  I told her I knew her record an’ to get out, and while we was arguin’ ’Rast come out and took a hand in the talk.  She laughed and flirted with him outrageous, and said she was a stranger in these parts, when I’d seen her many a time at Miss Squiers’s.”

“What was her name then?” asked the man.

“I think it was Rosie—­or Lucy, or something—.  Anyhow, it wasn’t Eliza, and that I’ll swear to.  But the girl laughed at me and made such silly smiles at ’Rast that he told me to shut up, ’cause he had a use for her in politics.”

“Well, well!” repeated the visitor.  “Just see how stories get twisted.  I heard you gave the girl a letter to your cousin Martha.”

“Well, I did.  ’Rast wanted to get her in at Elmhurst, to watch what Forbes was doing to defeat him, so he made me write the letter.  But how’d you know so much about this girl?” she inquired, with sudden suspicion.

“Me?  I only know what Mr. Hopkins told me.  I’m one of his confidential men.  But he never said how he happened to find the girl, or what he knew about her.”

“He didn’t know nothing.  He’d never seen her ’till that morning when she came here.  But he said she was clever, and she is, if pertness and a ready tongue counts for cleverness.  I suppose he pays her for what she tells him about Forbes, but he’d better save his money and fight on the square.  I don’t like this tricky politics, an’ never did.”

“I don’t either,” declared the man.  “But I’m in it, and can’t get out.”

“That’s what ’Rast says.  But some day they’ll put him out, neck and crop, if he ain’t careful.”

“Is the girl Eliza much use to him?”

“I can’t say.  He drove her over to Elmhurst that morning, and he drives over two or three evenings a week to meet her on the sly and get her report.  That may be politics, but it ain’t very respectable, to my notion.”

“Well, the campaign is nearly over, Mrs. Hopkins.”

“Thank goodness for that!” she replied.

The visitor sat silent after this, for he had learned all that the poor gossiping woman could tell him.  Finally he said: 

“I guess your husband’s going to be late.”

“Yes; if he ain’t more prompt than usual you’ll have a long spell of waiting.”

“Perhaps I’d better go over to the hotel and look him up.  I have to get back to Fairview tonight, you know.”

“Do as you please,” she answered carelessly.

So Mr. Burke, for it was the detective, bade her good-night and took his leave, and it was not until after he had gone that Mary Hopkins remembered she had forgotten to ask him his name.

“But it don’t matter,” she decided.  “He’s just one o’ ’Rast’s politicians, and I probably treated the fellow better than he deserved.”