seated by the window in the dark alone, looking down on the city
below.

She had ceased to ask him of his work or plans and he no longer
troubled her with their discussion. Their lives were separated by
an ever-widening gulf.

Stimulated by a sermon he had preached in August of the previous
summer, when the death-rate was at its highest, a wave of reform
had swept over New York. In his sermon he had arraigned the city
government in terms so trenchant and terrible the people had rallied
as to a trumpet call to battle.

A resistless movement for the overthrow of a corrupt administration
took the city by storm. Day and night with voice and pen, with all
the fire and passion of his magnetic personality, he had led these
assaults.

Complete success crowned the movement. The reform Mayor was elected
by a large majority.

Ten months had passed and the net results were discouraging. Police
scandals ran riot as of yore; gambling, drinking and the social
evil flourished as before; and the press, that had valiantly and
almost unanimously championed Reform, now exhausted upon it the
vocabulary of abuse.

Gordon was disgusted and sickened and felt that one of his fairest
dreams had been shattered forever.