“And what was she to you?  You haven’t told us that yet?” There was a rancid sneer in Pierce’s insinuation.

Hal turned from the aisle and went straight for him.  A little man rose in his way.  It was Mintz, who had given him the heartening word after the committee meeting.  In his blind fury Hal struck him a staggering blow.  But the little Jew was plucky.  He closed with the younger man, and clinging to him panted out his good advice.

“Don’d fighd ‘im, nod here.  It’s no good.  Go to the pladform an’ say your say.  We’ll hear you.”

But it was impossible to hear any one now.  Uproar broke loose.  Men shouted, stormed, cursed; the meeting was become a rabble.  Above the din could be distinguished at intervals the voice of the Honorable Brett Harkins, who, in frantic but not illogical reversion to the idea of a political convention, squalled for the services of the sergeant-at-arms.  There was no sergeant-at-arms.

Mintz’s pudgy but clogging arms could restrain an athlete of Hal’s power only a brief moment; but in that moment sanity returned to the fury-heated brain.

“I beg your pardon, Mintz,” he said; “you’re quite right.  I thank you for stopping me.”

He returned to the aisle, pressing forward, with what purpose he could hardly have said, when he felt the sinewy grasp of McGuire Ellis on his shoulder.

“Tell ’em the whole thing,” fiercely urged Ellis.  “Be a man.  Own up to the whole business, between you and the girl.”

“I don’t know what you mean!” cried Hal.

“Don’t be young,” groaned Ellis; “you’ve gone halfway.  Clean it up.  Then we can face the situation with the ‘Clarion.’  Tell ’em you were her lover.”

“Milly’s?  I wasn’t.  It was Veltman.”

“Good God of Mercy!”

“Did you think—­”

“Yes;—­Lord forgive me!  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I tell you suspected—­”

“All right!  I know.  We’ll talk it out later.  The big thing now is, what’s the paper going to do about this meeting?”

“Print it.”

Into Ellis’s face flashed the fervor of the warrior who sees victory loom through the clouds of hopeless defeat.

“You mean that?”

“Every word of it.  And run the epidemic spread—­”

Before he could finish, Ellis was fighting his way to a telephone.

Hal met his father’s eyes, and turned away with a heartsick sense that, in the one glance, had passed indictment, conviction, a hopeless acquiescence, and the dumb reproach of the trapped criminal against avenging justice.  He turned and made for the nearest exit, conscious of only two emotions, a burning desire to be away from that place and a profound gladness that, without definite expression of the change, the bitter alienation of McGuire Ellis was past.

As Hal left, there arose, out of the turmoil, one clear voice of reason:  the thundering baritone of Festus Willard moving an adjournment.  It passed, and the gathering slowly dispersed.  Avoiding the offered companionship of Congressman Harkins and Douglas, Dr. Surtaine took himself off by a side passage.  At the end of it, alone, stood the Reverend Norman Hale, leaning against the sill of an open window.  The old quack rushed upon him.