Her tone recalled to him their chilly relationship.

"It's a regular knock-out idea," he said stiffly. "And I'm much obliged to you."

They had turned back and were nearing the gate of the yard.

"I hope it will really help you—but be careful to avoid giving them an opening to bring a libel charge. Permit me to say that you have been making a splendid campaign."

"Things do seem to be coming my direction. The way I threw Blind Charlie's threat back into his teeth, that has made a great hit. I think I have him on the run."

He hesitated, gave her a sharp look, then added rather defiantly:

"I might as well tell you that in a few days I expect to have Blake also on the run—in fact, in a regular gallop. That Indianapolis lawyer friend of mine, Wilson's his name, is coming here to help me."

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

"You'll remember," he continued in his defiant tone, "that I once told you that your father's case was not your case. It's the city's. I'm going to put Wilson on it, and I expect him to clear it all up in short order."

She could not hold back a sudden uprush of resentment.

"So then it's to be a battle between us, is it?" she demanded, looking him straight in the face.

"A battle? How?"

"To see which one gets the evidence."

"We've got to get it—that's all," he answered grimly.

In an instant she had resumed control of herself.

"I hope you succeed," she said calmly. "Good afternoon." And with a crisp nod she turned away.

Bruce's action in calmly taking the case out of her hands, which was in effect an iteration of his statement that he had no confidence in her ability, stung her bitterly and for a space her wrath flamed high. But there were too many things to be done to give much time to mere resentment. She wrote the letter to the Chicago advertising agency, mailed it, then set out to find her father. At the jail she was told that he had been released and had left for Blake's. There she found him. He came out into the hall, kissed her warmly, then hurried back into the bedroom. Katherine, glancing through the open door, saw him move swiftly about the old gray-haired woman, while Blake stood in strained silence looking on.

When her father had done all for Mrs. Blake he could do at that time, Katherine hurried him away to Elsie Sherman. He replaced the very willing Doctor Woods, who knew little about typhoid, and assumed charge of Elsie with all his unerring mastery of what to do. He gave her his very best skill, and he hovered about her with all the concern that the illness of his own child might have evoked, for she had been a warm favourite with him and the charges of her husband had in no degree lessened his regard. Whatever science and care and love could do for her, it all was certain to be done.

Within two hours after Blake had received Doctor Brenholtz's telegram its contents had flashed about the town. Doctor West was besieged. The next day found him treating not only as many individual cases as his strength and the hours of the day allowed, but found him in command of the Board of Health's fight against the plague, with all the rest of the city's doctors accepting orders from him. All his long life of incessant study and experiment, all those long years when he had been laughed at for a fool and jeered at for a failure—all that time had been but an unconscious preparation for this great fight to save a stricken city. And the town, for all its hatred, for all the stain upon his name, as it watched this slight, white-haired man go so swiftly and gently and efficiently about his work, began to feel for him something akin to awe—began dimly to feel that this old figure whom it had been their habit to scorn for near a generation was perhaps their greatest man.

While Katherine watched this fight against the fever with her father as its central figure, while she awaited in suspense some results of her advertising campaign, and while she tried to press forward the other details of her search for evidence, she could but keep her eyes upon the mayoralty campaign—for it was mounting to an ever higher climax of excitement. Bruce was fighting like a fury. The sensation created by his announcement of Blind Charlie's threatened treachery was a mere nothing compared to the uproar created when he informed the people, not directly, but by careful insinuation, that Blake was responsible for the epidemic.

Blake denied the charge with desperate energy and with all his power of eloquence; he declared that the epidemic was but another consequence of that supremest folly of mankind, public ownership. He was angrily supported by his party, his friends and his followers—but those followers were not so many as a few short weeks before. Passion was at its highest—so high that trustworthy forecasts of the election were impossible. But ten days before election it was freely talked about the streets, and even privately admitted by some of Blake's best friends, that nothing but a miracle could save him from defeat.

In these days of promise Bruce seemed to pour forth an even greater energy; and in his efforts he was now aided by Mr. Wilson, the Indianapolis lawyer, who was spending his entire time in Westville. Katherine caught in Bruce's face, when they passed upon the street, a gleam of triumph which he could not wholly suppress. She wondered, with a pang of jealousy, if he and Mr. Wilson were succeeding where she had failed—if all her efforts were to come to nothing—if her ambition to demonstrate to Bruce that she could do things was to prove a mere dream?

Toward noon one day, as she was walking along the Square homeward bound from Elsie Sherman's, she passed Bruce and Mr. Wilson headed for the stairway of the Express Building. Both bowed to her, then Katherine overheard Bruce say, "I'll be with you in a minute, Wilson," and the next instant he was at her side.

"Excuse me, Miss West," he said. "But we have just unearthed something which I think you should be the first person to learn."

"I shall be glad to hear it," she said in the cold, polite tone they reserved for one another.

"Let's go over into the Court House yard."

They silently crossed the street and entered the comparative seclusion of the yard.

"I suppose it is something very significant?" she asked.

"So significant," he burst out, "that the minute the Express appears this afternoon Harrison Blake is a has-been!"

She looked at him quickly. The triumph she had of late seen gleaming in his face was now openly blazing there.

"You mean——"

"I mean that I've got the goods on him!"

"You—you have evidence?"

"The best sort of evidence!"

"That will clear my father?"

"Perhaps not directly. Indirectly, yes. But it will smash Blake to smithereens!"

She was happy on Bruce's account, on her father's, on the city's, but for the moment she was sick upon her own.

"Is the nature of the evidence a secret?"

"The whole town will know it this afternoon. I asked you over here to tell you first. I have just secured a full confession from two of Blake's accomplices."

"Then you've discovered Doctor Sherman?" she exclaimed.

"Doctor Sherman?" He stared at her. "I don't know what you mean. The two men are the assistant superintendent of the water-works and the engineer at the pumping-plant."

"How did you get at them?"

"Wilson and I started out to cross-examine everybody who might be in the remotest way connected with the case. My suspicion against the two men was first aroused by their strained behaviour. I went——"

"Then it was you who made this discovery, not that—that other lawyer?"

"Yes, I was the first to tackle the pair, though Wilson has helped me. He's a great lawyer, Wilson. We've gone at them relentlessly—with accusation, cross-examination, appeal; with the result that this morning both of them broke down and confessed that Blake had secretly paid them to do all that lay within their power to make the water-works a failure."

They followed the path in silence for several moments, Katherine's eyes upon the ground. At length she looked up. In Bruce's face she plainly read what she had guessed to be an extra motive with him all along, a glowering determination to crush her, humiliate her, a determination to cut the ground from beneath her ambition by overturning Blake and clearing her father without her aid.

"And so," she breathed, "you have made good all your predictions. You have succeeded and I have failed."

For an instant his square face glowed upon her, exultant with triumph. Then he partially subdued the look.

"We won't discuss that matter," he said. "It's enough to repeat what I once said, that Wilson is a crackerjack lawyer."

"All the same, I congratulate you—and wish you every success," she said; and as quickly thereafter as she could she made her escape, her heart full of the bitterness of personal defeat.

That afternoon the Express, in its largest type, in its editor's highest-powered English, made its exposure of Harrison Blake. And that afternoon there was pandemonium in Westville. Violence might have been attempted upon Blake, but, fortunately for him, he had gone the night before to Indianapolis—on a matter of state politics, it was said.

Blake, however, was a man to fight to the last ditch. On the morning after the publication of the Express's charges, the Clarion printed an indignant denial from him. That same morning Bruce was arrested on a charge of criminal libel, and that same day—the grand jury being in session—he was indicted. Blake's attorney demanded that, since these charges had a very direct bearing upon the approaching election, the trial should take precedence over other cases and be heard immediately. To this Bruce eagerly agreed, for he desired nothing better than to demolish Blake in court, and the trial was fixed for five days before election.

Katherine, going about, heard the people jeer at Blake's denial; heard them say that his demand for a trial was mere bravado to save his face for a time—that when the trial came he would never show up. She saw the former favourite of Westville become in an hour an object of universal abomination. And, on the other hand, she saw Bruce leap up to the very apex of popularity.

For Bruce's sake, for every one's sake but her own, she was rejoiced. But as for herself, she walked in the valley of humiliation, she ate of the ashes of bitterness. Swept aside by the onrush of events, feeling herself and her plans suddenly become futile, she decided to cease all efforts and countermand all orders. But she could not veto her plan concerning Doctor Sherman, for her money was spent and her advertisements were broadcast through the North. As for Mr. Manning, he stated that he had become so interested in the situation that he was going to stay on in Westville for a time to see how affairs came out.

On the day of the trial Katherine and the city had one surprise at the very start. Contrary to all predictions, Harrison Blake was in the court-room and at the prosecution's table. Despite all the judge, the clerk, and the sheriff could do to maintain order, there were cries and mutterings against him. Not once did he flinch, but sat looking straight ahead of him, or whispering to his private attorney or to the public prosecutor, Kennedy. He was a brave man. Katherine had known that.

Bruce, all confidence, recited on the witness stand how he had come by his evidence. Then the assistant superintendent told with most convincing detail how he had succumbed to Blake's temptation and done his bidding. Next, the engineer testified to the same effect.

The crowd lowered at Blake. Certainly matters looked blacker than ever for the one-time idol of the city.

But Blake sat unmoved. His calmness begat a sort of uneasiness in Katherine. When the engineer had completed his direct testimony, Kennedy arose, and following whispered suggestions from Blake, cross-questioned the witness searchingly, ever more searchingly, pursued him in and out, in and out, till at length, snap!—Katherine's heart stood still, and the crowd leaned forward breathless—snap, and he had caught the engineer in a contradiction!

Kennedy went after the engineer with rapid-fire questions that involved the witness in contradiction on contradiction—that got him confused, then hopelessly tangled up—that then broke him down completely and drew from him a shamefaced confession. The fact was, he said, that Mr. Bruce, wanting campaign material, had privately come to him and paid him to make his statements. He had had no dealings with Mr. Blake whatever. He was a poor man—his wife was sick with the fever—he had needed the money—he hoped the court would be lenient with him—etc., etc. The other witness, recalled, confessed to the same story.

Amid a stunned court room, Bruce sprang to his feet.

"Lies! Lies!" he cried in a choking fury. "They've been bought off by Blake!"

"Silence!" shouted Judge Kellog, pounding his desk with his gavel.

"I tell you it's trickery! They've been bought off by Blake!"

"Silence!" thundered the judge, and followed with a dire threat of contempt of court.

But already Mr. Wilson and Sheriff Nichols were dragging the struggling Bruce back into his chair. More shouts and hammering of gavels by the judge and clerk had partially restored to order the chaos begotten by this scene, when a bit of paper was slipped from behind into Bruce's hand. He unfolded it with trembling fingers, and read in a disguised, back-hand scrawl:

"There's still enough left of me to know what's happened."

That was all. But Bruce understood. Here was the handiwork and vengeance of Blind Charlie Peck. He sprang up again and turned his ireful face to where, in the crowd, sat the old politician.

"You—you——" he began.

But before he got further he was again dragged down into his seat. And almost before the crowd had had time fairly to regain its breath, the jury had filed out, had filed back in again, had returned its verdict of guilty, and Judge Kellog had imposed a sentence of five hundred dollars fine and sixty days in the county jail.

In all the crowd that looked bewildered on, Katherine was perhaps the only one who believed in Bruce's cry of trickery. She saw that Blake, with Blind Charlie's cunning back of him, had risked his all on one bold move that for a brief period had made him an object of universal hatred. She saw that Bruce had fallen into a trap cleverly baited for him, saw that he was the victim of an astute scheme to discredit him utterly and remove him from the way.

As Blake left the Court House Katherine heard a great cheer go up for him; and within an hour the evidence of eye and ear proved to her that he was more popular than ever. She saw the town crowd about him to make amends for the injustice it considered it had done him. And as for Bruce, as he was led by Sheriff Nichols from the Court House toward the jail, she heard him pursued by jeers and hisses.

Katherine walked homeward from the trial, completely dazed by this sudden capsizing of all of Bruce's hopes—and of her own hopes as well, for during the last few days she had come to depend on Bruce for the clearing of her father. That evening, and most of the night, she spent in casting up accounts. As matters then stood, they looked desperate indeed. On the one hand, everything pointed to Blake's election and the certain success of his plans. On the other hand, she had gained no clue whatever to the whereabouts of Doctor Sherman; nothing had as yet developed in the scheme she had built about Mr. Manning; as for Mr. Stone, she had expected nothing from him, and all he had turned in to her was that he suspected secret relations between Blake and Peck. Furthermore, the man she loved—for yes, she loved him still—was in jail, his candidacy collapsed, the cause for which he stood a ruin. And last of all, the city, to the music of its own applause, was about to be colossally swindled.

A dark prospect indeed. But as she sat alone in the night, the cheers for Blake floating in to her, she desperately determined to renew her fight. Five days still remained before election, and in five days one might do much; during those five days her ships might still come home from sea. She summoned her courage, and gripped it fiercely. "I'll do my best! I'll do my best!" she kept breathing throughout the night. And her determination grew in its intensity as she realized the sum of all the things for which she fought, and fought alone.

She was fighting to save her father, she was fighting to save the city, she was fighting to save the man she loved.



CHAPTER XXII

THE LAST STAND

The next morning Katherine, incited by the desperate need of action, was so bold as to request Mr. Manning to meet her at Old Hosie's. She was fortunate enough to get into the office without being observed. The old lawyer, in preparation for the conference, had drawn his wrinkled, once green shade as far down as he dared without giving cause for suspicion, and before the window had placed a high-backed chair and thrown upon it a greenish, blackish, brownish veteran of a fall overcoat—thus balking any glances that might rove lazily upward to his office.

Old Hosie raised his lean figure from his chair and shook her hand, at first silently. He, too, was dazed by the collapse of Bruce's fortunes.

"Things certainly do look bad," he said slowly. "I never suspected that his case would suddenly stand on its head like that."

"Nor did I—though from the beginning I had an instinctive feeling that it was too good, too easy, to be true."

"And to think that after all we know the boy is right!" groaned the old man.

"That's what makes the whole affair so tantalizing. We know he is right—we know my father is innocent—we know the danger the city is in—we know Mr. Blake's guilt—we know just what his plans are. We know everything! But we have not one jot of evidence that would be believed by the public. The irony of it! To think, for all our knowledge, we can only look helplessly on and watch Mr. Blake succeed in everything."

Old Hosie breathed an imprecation that must have made his ancestors, asleep behind the old Quaker meeting-house down in Buck Creek, gasp in their grassy, cedar-shaded graves.

"All the same," Katherine added desperately, "we've got to half kill ourselves trying between now and election day!"

They subsided into silence. In nervous impatience Katherine awaited the appearance of the pseudo-investor in run-down farms. He seemed a long time in coming, but the delay was all in her suspense, for as the Court House clock was tolling the appointed hour Mr. Manning, alias Mr. Hartsell, walked into the office. He was, as Katherine had once described him to Old Hosie, a quiet, reserved man with that confidence-inspiring amplitude in the equatorial regions commonly observable in bank presidents and trusted officials of corporations.

As he closed the door his subdued but confident dignity dropped from him and he warmly shook hands with Katherine, for this was their first meeting since their conference in New York six weeks before.

"You must know how very, very terrible our situation is," Katherine rapidly began. "We've simply got to do something!"

"I certainly haven't done much so far," said Manning, with a rueful smile. "I'm sorry—but you don't know how tedious my role's been to me. To act the part of bait, and just lie around before the noses of the fish you're after, and not get a bite in two whole weeks—that's not my idea of exciting fishing."

"I know. But the plan looked a good one."

"It looked first-class," conceded Manning. "And, perhaps——"

"With election only four days off, we've simply got to do something!" Katherine repeated. "If nothing else, let's drop that plan, devise a new one, and stake our hopes on some wild chance."

"Wait a minute," said Manning. "I wouldn't drop that plan just yet. I've gone two weeks without a bite, but—I'm not sure—remember I say I'm not sure—but I think that at last I may possibly have a nibble."

"A nibble you say?" cried Katherine, leaning eagerly forward.

"At least, the cork bobbed under."

"When?"

"Last night."

"Last night? Tell me about it!"

"Well, of late I've been making my study of the water-works more and more obvious, and I've half suspected that I've been watched, though I was too uncertain to risk raising any false hopes by sending you word about it. But yesterday afternoon Blind Charlie Peck—he's been growing friendly with me lately—yesterday Blind Charlie invited me to have supper with him. The supper was in his private dining-room; just us two. I suspected that the old man was up to some game, and when I saw the cocktails and whiskey and wine come on, I was pretty sure—for you know, Miss West, when a crafty old politician of the Peck variety wants to steal a little information from a man, his regulation scheme is to get his man so drunk he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"I know. Go on!"

"I tried to beg off from the drinking. I told Mr. Peck I did not drink. I liked it, I said, but I could not carry it. A glass or two would put me under the table, so the only safe plan for me was to leave it entirely alone. But he pressed me—and I took one. And he pressed me again, and I took another—and another—and another—till I'd had five or——"

"But you should never have done it!" cried Katherine in alarm.

Manning smiled at her reassuringly.

"I'm no drinking man, but I'm so put together that I can swallow a gallon and then sign the pledge with as steady a hand as the president of the W. C. T. U. But after the sixth drink I must have looked just about right to Blind Charlie. He began to put cunning questions at me. Little by little all my secrets leaked out. The farm lands were only a blind. My real business in Westville was the water-works. There was a chance that the city might sell them, and if I could get them I was going to snap them up. In fact, I was going to make an offer to the city in a very few days. I had been examining the system closely; it wasn't really in bad shape at all; it was worth a lot more than the people said; and I was ready, if I had to, to pay its full value to get it—even more. I had plenty of money behind me, for I was representing Mr. Seymour, the big New York capitalist."

"Good! Good!" cried Katharine breathlessly. "How did he seem to take it?"

"I could see that he was stirred up, and I guessed that he was thinking big thoughts."

"But did he say anything?"

"Not a word. Except that it was interesting."

"Ah!" It was an exclamation of disappointment. Then she instantly added: "But of course he could not say anything until after he had talked it over with Mr. Blake. He'll do that this morning—if he did not do it last night. You may be approached by them to-day."

She stood up excitedly, and her brown eyes glowed. "After all, something may come of the plan!"

"It's at least an opening," said Manning.

"Yes. And let's use it for all it's worth. Don't you think it would be best for you to go right back to your hotel, and keep yourself in sight, so Mr. Peck won't have to lose a second in case he wants to talk to you again?"

"That's what I had in mind."

"And all day I'll be either in my office, or at home, or at Mrs. Sherman's. And the minute anything develops, send word to Mr. Hollingsworth and he'll send word to me."

"I'll not waste a minute," he assured her.

All day she waited with suppressed excitement for good news from Manning. But the only news was that there was no news. And so on the second day. And so on the third. Her hopes, that had flared so high, sunk by slow degrees to mere embers among the ashes. It appeared that the nibble, which had seemed but the preliminary to swallowing the bait, was after all no more than a nibble; that the fish had merely nosed the worm and swum away. In the meantime, while eaten up by the suspense of this inaction, she was witness to activity of the most strenuous variety. Never had she seen a man spring up into favour as did Harrison Blake. His campaign meetings were resumed the very night of Bruce's conviction; the city crowded to them; the Blake Marching Club tramped the streets till midnight, with flaming torches, rousing the enthusiasm of the people with their shouts and campaign songs; and wherever Blake appeared upon the platform he was greeted by an uproar, and even when he appeared by daylight, when men's spirits are more sedate, his progress through the streets was a series of miniature ovations.

As for Bruce, Katherine saw his power and position crumble so swiftly that she could hardly see them disappear. The structure of a tremendous future had stood one moment imposingly before her eyes. Presto, and it was no more! The sentiment he had roused in favour of public ownership, and against the regime of Blake, was as a thing that had never been. With him in jail, his candidacy was but the ashes that are left by a conflagration—though, to be sure, since the ballots were already printed, it was too late to remove his name. He was a thing to be cursed at, jeered at. He had suddenly become a little lower than nobody, a little less than nothing.

And as for his paper, when Katherine looked at it it made her sick at heart. Within a day it lost a third in size. Advertisers no longer dared, perhaps no longer cared, to give it patronage. Its news and editorial character collapsed. This last she could hardly understand, for Billy Harper was in charge, and Bruce had often praised him to her as a marvel of a newspaper man. But one evening, when she was coming home late from Elsie Sherman's and hurrying through the crowd of Main Street, Billy Harper lurched against her. The next day, with a little adroit inquiry, she learned that Harper, freed from Bruce's restraining influence, and depressed by the general situation, was drinking constantly. It required no prophetic vision for Katherine to see that, if things continued as they now were going, on the day Bruce came out of jail he would find the Express, which he had lifted to power and a promise of prosperity, had sunk into a disrepute and a decay from which even so great an energy as his could not restore it.

Since there was so little she could do elsewhere, Katherine was at the Shermans' several times a day, trying in unobtrusive ways to aid the nurse and Doctor Sherman's sister. Miss Sherman was a spare, silent woman of close upon forty, with rather sharp, determined features. Despite her unloveliness, Katherine respected her deeply, for in other days Elsie had told her sister-in-law's story. Miss Sherman and her brother were orphans. To her had been given certain plain virtues, to him all the graces of mind and body. She was a country school-teacher, and it had been her hard work, her determination, her penny-counting economy, that had saved her talented brother from her early hardships and sent him through college. She had made him what he was; and beneath her stern exterior she loved him with that intense devotion a lonely, ingrowing woman feels for the object on which she has spent her life's thought and effort.

Whenever Katherine entered the sick chamber—they had moved Elsie's bed into the sitting-room because of its greater convenience and better air—her heart would stand still as she saw how white and wasted was her friend. At such a time she would recall with a choking keenness all of Elsie's virtues, each virtue increased and purified—her simplicity, her purity, her loyalty.

Several times Elsie came back from the brink of the Great Abyss, over which she so faintly hovered, and smiled at Katherine and spoke a few words—but only a few, for Doctor West allowed no more. Each time she asked, with fluttering trepidation, if any word had come from her husband; and each time at Katherine's choking negative she would try to smile bravely and hide her disappointment.

On one of the last days of this period—it was the Sunday before election—Doctor West had said that either the end or a turn for the better must be close at hand. Katherine had been sitting long watching Elsie's pale face and faintly rising bosom, when Elsie slowly opened her eyes. Elsie pressed her friend's hand with a barely perceptible pressure and smiled with the faintest shadow of a smile.

"You here again, Katherine?" she breathed.

"Yes, dear."

"Just the same dear Katherine!"

"Don't speak, Elsie."

She was silent a space. Then the wistful look Katherine had seen so often came into the patient's soft gray eyes, and she knew what Elsie's words were going to be before they passed her lips.

"Have you heard anything—from him?"

Katherine slowly shook her head.

Elsie turned her face away for a moment. A sigh fluttered out. Then she looked back.

"But you are still trying to find him?"

"We have done, and are doing, everything, dear."

"I'm sure," sighed Elsie, "that he would come if he only knew."

"Yes—if he only knew."

"And you will keep on—trying—to get him word?"

"Yes, dear."

"Then perhaps—he may come yet."

"Perhaps," said Katherine, with hopeful lips. But in her heart there was no hope.

Elsie closed her eyes, and did not speak again. Presently Katherine went out into the level, red-gold sunlight of the waning November afternoon. The church bells, resting between their morning duty and that of the night, all were silent; over the city there lay a hush—it was as if the town were gathering strength for its final spasm of campaign activity on the morrow. There was nothing in that Sabbath calm to disturb the emotion of Elsie's bedside, and Katherine walked slowly homeward beneath the barren maples, in that fearful, tremulous, yearning mood in which she had left the bedside of her friend.

In this same mood she reached home and entered the empty sitting-room. She was slowly drawing off her gloves when she perceived, upon the centre-table, a special delivery letter addressed to herself. She picked it up in moderate curiosity. The envelope was plain, the address was typewritten, there was nothing to suggest the identity of the sender. In the same moderate curiosity she unfolded the inclosure. Then her curiosity became excitement, for the letter bore the signature of Mr. Seymour.

"I have to-day received a letter from Mr. Harrison Blake of Westville," Mr. Seymour wrote her, "of which the following is the text: 'We have just learned that there is in our city a Mr. Hartsell who represents himself to be an agent of yours instructed to purchase the water-works of Westville. Before entering into any negotiations with him the city naturally desires to be assured by you that he is a representative of your firm. As haste is necessary in this matter, we request you to reply at once and by special delivery."

"Ah, I understand the delay now!" Katherine exclaimed. "Before making a deal with Mr. Manning, Mr. Blake and Mr. Peck wanted to be sure their man was what he said he was!"

"And now, Miss West," Mr. Seymour wrote on, "since you have kept me in the dark as to the details of your plan, and as I have never heard of said Hartsell, I have not known just how to reply to your Mr. Blake. So I have had recourse to the vague brevity of a busy man, and have sent the following by the same mail that brings this to you: 'Replying to your inquiry of the 3rd inst. I beg to inform you that I have a representative in Westville fully authorized to act for me in the matter of the water-works.' I hope this reply is all right. Also there is a second hope, which is strong even if I try to keep it subdued; and that is that you will have to buy the water-works in for me."

From that instant Katherine's mind was all upon her scheme. She was certain that Mr. Seymour's reply was already in the hands of Blake and Peck, and that they were even then planning, or perhaps had already planned, what action they should take. At once she called Old Hosie up by telephone.

"I think it looks as though the 'nibble' were going to develop into a bite, and quick," she said rapidly. "Get into communication with Mr. Manning and tell him to make no final arrangement with those parties till he sees me. I want to know what they offer."

It was an hour later, and the early night had already fallen, when there was a ring at the West door, and Old Hosie entered, alone. Katharine quickly led the old lawyer into the parlour.

"Well?" she whispered.

"Manning has just accepted an invitation for an automobile ride this evening from Charlie Peck."

Katherine suddenly gripped his hand.

"That may be a bite!"

The old man nodded with suppressed excitement.

"They were to set out at six. It's five minutes to six now."

Without a word Katherine crossed swiftly and opened the door an inch, and stood tensely waiting beside it. Presently, through the calm of the Sabbath evening, there started up very near the sudden buzzing of a cranked-up car. Then swiftly the buzzing faded away into the distance.

Katherine turned.

"It's Mr. Blake's car. They'll all be at The Sycamores in half an hour. It's a bite, certain! Get hold of Mr. Manning as soon as he comes back, and bring him here. The house will be darkened, but the front door will be unlocked. Come right in. Come as late as you please. You'll find me waiting here in the parlour."

The hours that followed were trying ones for Katherine. She sat about with her aunt till toward ten o'clock. Then her father returned from his last call, and soon thereafter they all went to their rooms. Katherine remained upstairs till she thought her father and aunt were settled, then slipped down to the parlour, set the front door ajar, and sat waiting in the darkness. She heard the Court House clock with judicial slowness count off eleven o'clock—then after a long, long space, count off twelve. A few minutes later she heard Blake's car return, and after a time she heard the city clock strike one.

It was close upon two when soft steps sounded upon the porch and the front door opened. She silently shook hands with her two vague visitors.

"We didn't think it safe to come any sooner," explained Old Hosie in a whisper.

"You've been with them out at The Sycamores?" Katherine eagerly inquired of Manning.

"Yes. For a four hours' session."

"Well?"

"Well, so far it looks O. K."

In a low voice he detailed to Katherine how they had at first fenced with one another; how at length he had told them that he had a formal proposal to the city to buy the water-works all drawn up and that on the morrow he was going to present it—and that, furthermore, he would, if necessary, increase the sum he offered in that proposal to the full value of the plant. Blake and Peck, after a slow approach to the subject, in which they admitted that they also planned to buy the system, had suggested that, inasmuch as he was only an agent and there would be no profit in the purchase to him personally, he abandon his purpose. If he would do this they would make it richly worth his while. He had replied that this was such a different plan from that which he had been considering that he must have time to think it over and would give them his answer to-morrow. On which understanding the three had parted.

"I suppose it would hardly be practicable," said Katherine when he had finished, "to have a number of witnesses concealed at your place of meeting and overhear your conversation?"

"No, it would be mighty difficult to pull that off."

"And what's more," she commented, "Mr. Blake would deny whatever they said, and with his present popularity his words would carry more weight than that of any half dozen witnesses we might get. At the best, our charges would drag on for months, perhaps years, in the courts, with in the end the majority of the people believing in him. With the election so near, we must have instantaneous results. We must use a means of exposing him that will instantly convince all the people."

"That's the way I see it," agreed Manning.

"When did they offer to pay you, in case you agreed to sell out to them?"

"On the day they got control of the water-works. Naturally they didn't want to pay me before, for fear I might break faith with them and buy in the system for Mr. Seymour."

"Can't you make them put their proposition in the form of an agreement, to be signed by all three of you?" asked Katherine.

"But mebbe they won't consent to that," put in Old Hosie.

"Mr. Manning will know how to bring them around. He can say, for example, that, unless he has such a written agreement, they will be in a position to drop him when once they've got what they want. He can say that unless they consent to sign some such agreement he will go on with his original plan. I think they'll sign."

"And if they do?" queried Old Hosie.

"If they do," said Katherine, "we'll have documentary evidence to show Westville that those two great political enemies, Mr. Blake and Mr. Peck, are secretly business associates—their business being a conspiracy to wreck the water-works and defraud the city. I think such a document would interest Westville."

"I should say it would!" exclaimed Old Hosie.

They whispered on, excitedly, hopefully; and when the two men had departed and Katherine had gone up to her room to try to snatch a few hours' sleep, she continued to dwell eagerly upon the plan that seemed so near of consummation. She tossed about her bed, and heard the Court House clock sound three, and then four. Then the heat of her excitement began to pass away, and cold doubts began to creep into her mind. Perhaps Blake and Peck would refuse to sign. And even if they did sign, she began to see this prospective success as a thing of lesser magnitude. The agreement would prove the alliance between Blake and Peck, and would make clear that a conspiracy existed. It was good, but it was not enough. It fell short by more than half. It would not clear her father, though his innocence might be inferred, and it would not prove Blake's responsibility for the epidemic.

As she lay there staring wide-eyed into the gloom of the night, listening to the town clock count off the hours of her last day, she realized that what she needed most of all, far more than Manning's document even should he get it, was the testimony which she believed was sealed behind the lips of Doctor Sherman, whose present whereabouts God only knew.



CHAPTER XXIII

AT ELSIE'S BEDSIDE

The day before election, a day of hope deferred, had dragged slowly by and night had at length settled upon the city. Doctor West had the minute before come in from a long, dinnerless day of hastening from case to case, and now he, Katherine, and her aunt were sitting about the supper table. To Katherine's eye her father looked very weary and white and frail. The day-and-night struggle at scores of bedsides was sorely wearing him down.

As for Katherine, she was hardly less worn. She scarcely touched the food before her. The fears that always assail one at a crisis, now swarmed in upon her. With the election but a few hours distant, with no word as yet from Mr. Manning, she saw all her high plans coming to naught and saw herself overwhelmed with utter defeat. From without there dimly sounded the beginning of the ferment of the campaign's final evening; it brought to her more keenly that to-morrow the city was going to give itself over unanimously to be despoiled. Across the table, her father, pale and worried, was a reminder that, when his fight of the plague was completed, he must return to jail. Her mind flashed now and then to Bruce; she saw him in prison; she saw not only his certain defeat on the morrow, but she saw him crushed and ruined for life as far as a career in Westville was concerned; and though she bravely tried to master her feeling, the throbbing anguish with which she looked upon his fate was affirmation of how poignant and deep-rooted was her love.

And yet, despite these flooding fears, she clung with a dizzy desperation to hope, and to the determination to fight on to the last second of the last minute.

While swinging thus between despair and desperate hope, she was maintaining, at first somewhat mechanically to be sure, a conversation with her father, whom she had not seen since their early breakfast together.

"How does the fever situation seem to-night?" she asked.

"Much better," said Doctor West. "There were fewer new cases reported to-day than any day for a week."

"Then you are getting the epidemic under control?"

"I think we can at last say we have it thoroughly in hand. The number of new cases is daily decreasing, and the old cases are doing well. I don't know of an epidemic of this size on record where the mortality has been so small."

She came out of her preoccupation and breathlessly demanded:

"Tell me, how is Elsie Sherman? I could not get around to see her to-day."

He dropped his eyes to his plate and did not answer.

"You mean she is no better?"

"She is very low."

"But she still has a chance?"

"Yes, she has a chance. But that's about all. The fever is at its climax. I think to-night will decide which it's to be."

"You are going to her again to-night?"

"Right after supper."

"Then I'll go with you," said Katherine. "Poor Elsie! Poor Elsie!" she murmured to herself. Then she asked, "Have they had any word from Doctor Sherman?"

"I asked his sister this afternoon. She said they had not."

They fell silent for a moment or two. Doctor West nibbled at his ham with a troubled air.

"There is one feature of the case I cannot approve of," he at length remarked "Of course the Shermans are poor, but I do not think Miss Sherman should have impaired Elsie's chances, such as they are, from motives of economy."

"Impaired Elsie's chances?" queried Katherine.

"And certainly she should not have done so without consulting me," continued Doctor West.

"Done what?"

"Oh, I forgot I had not had a chance to tell you. When I made my first call this morning I learned that Miss Sherman had discharged the nurse."

"Discharged the nurse?"

"Yes. During the night."

"But what for?"

"Miss Sherman said they could not afford to keep her."

"But with Elsie so dangerously sick, this is no time to economize!"

"Exactly what I told her. And I said there were plenty of friends who would have been happy to supply the necessary money."

"And what did she say?"

"Very little. She's a silent, determined woman, you know. She said that even at such a time they could not accept charity."

"But did you not insist upon her getting another nurse?"

"Yes. But she refused to have one."

"Then who is looking after Elsie?"

"Miss Sherman."

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone. She has even discharged old Mrs. Murphy, who came in for a few hours a day to clean up."

"It seems almost incomprehensible!" ejaculated Katherine. "Think of running such a risk for the sake of a few dollars!"

"After all, Miss Sherman isn't such a bad nurse," Doctor West's sense of justice prompted him to admit. "In fact, she is really doing very well."

"All the same, it seems incomprehensible!" persisted Katherine. "For economy's sake——"

She broke off and was silent a moment. Then suddenly she leaned across the table.

"You are sure she gave no other reason?"

"None."

"And you believe her?"

"Why, you don't think she would lie to me, do you?" exclaimed Doctor West.

"I don't say that," Katherine returned rapidly. "But she's shrewd and close-mouthed. She might not have told you the whole truth."

"But what could have been her real reason then?"

"Something besides the reason she gave. That's plain."

"But what is it? Why, Katherine," her father burst out, half rising from his chair, "what's the matter with you?"

Her eyes were glowing with excitement. "Wait! Wait!" she said quickly, lifting a hand.

She gazed down upon the table, her brow puckered with intense thought. Her father and her aunt stared at her in gathering amazement, and waited breathlessly till she should speak.

After a minute she glanced up at her father. The strange look in her face had grown more strange.

"You saw no one else there besides Miss Sherman?" she asked quickly.

"No."

"Nor signs of any one?"

"No," repeated the bewildered old man. "What are you thinking of, Katherine?"

"I don't dare say it—I hardly dare think it!"

She pushed back her chair and arose. She was quivering all over, but she strove to command her agitation.

"As soon as you're through supper, father, I'll be ready to go to Elsie."

"I'm through now."

"Come on, then. Let's not lose a minute!"

They hurried out and entered the carriage which, at the city's charge, stood always waiting Doctor West's requirements. "To Mrs. Sherman's—quick!" Katherine ordered the driver, and the horse clattered away through the crisp November night.

Already people were streaming toward the centre of the town to share in the excitement of the campaign's closing night. As the carriage passed the Square, Katherine saw, built against the Court House and brilliantly festooned with vari-coloured electric bulbs, the speakers' stand from which Blake and others of his party were later to address the final mass-meeting of the campaign.

The carriage turned past the jail into Wabash Avenue, and a minute afterward drew up beside the Sherman cottage. Pulsing with the double suspense of her conjecture and of her concern for Elsie's life, Katherine followed her father into the sick chamber. As they entered the hushed room the spare figure of Miss Sherman rose from a rocker beside the bed, greeted them with a silent nod, and drew back to give place to Doctor West.

Katherine moved slowly to the foot of the bed and gazed down. For a space, one cause of her suspense was swept out of her being, and all her concern was for the flickering life before her. Elsie lay with eyes closed, and breathing so faintly that she seemed scarcely to breathe at all. So pale, so wasted, so almost wraithlike was she as to suggest that when her spirit fled, if flee it must, nothing could be left remaining between the sheets.

As she gazed down upon her friend, hovering uncertainly upon life's threshold, a tingling chill pervaded Katherine's body. Since her mother's loss in unremembering childhood, Death had been kind to her; no one so dear had been thus carried up to the very brink of the grave. All that had been sweet and strong in her friendship with Elsie now flooded in upon her in a mighty wave of undefined emotion. She was immediately conscious only of the wasted figure before her, and its peril, but back of consciousness were unformed memories of their girlhood together, of the inseparable intimacy of their young womanhood, and of that shy and tender time when she had been the confidante of Elsie's courtship.

There was a choking at her throat, tears slipped down her cheeks, and there surged up a wild, wild wish, a rebellious demand, that Elsie might come safely through her danger.

But, presently, her mind reverted to the special purpose that had brought her hither. She studied the face of Miss Sherman, seeking confirmation of the conjecture that had so aroused her—studying also for some method of approaching Miss Sherman, of breaking down her guard, and gaining the information she desired. But she learned nothing from the expression of those spare, self-contained features; and she realized that the lips of the Sphinx would be easier to unlock than those of this loyal sister of a fugitive brother.

That her conjecture was correct, she became every instant more convinced. She sensed it in the stilled atmosphere of the house; she sensed it in the glances of cold and watchful hostility Miss Sherman now and then stole at her. She was wondering what should be her next step, when Doctor West, who had felt Elsie's pulse and examined the temperature chart, drew Miss Sherman back to near where Katherine stood.

"Still nothing from Doctor Sherman?" he whispered in grave anxiety.

"Nothing," said Miss Sherman, looking straight into her questioner's eyes.

"Too bad, too bad!" sighed Doctor West. "He ought to be home!"

Miss Sherman let the first trace of feeling escape from her compressed being.

"But still there is a chance?" she asked quickly.

"A fighting chance. I think we shall know which it's to be within an hour."

At these words Katherine heard from behind her ever so faint a sound, a sound that sent a thrill through all her nerves. A sound like a stifled groan. For a minute or more she did not move. But when Doctor West and Miss Sherman had gone back to their places and Doctor West had begun the final fight for Elsie's life, she slowly turned about. Before her was a door. Her heart gave a leap. When she had entered she had searched the room with a quick glance, and that door had then been closed. It now stood slightly ajar.

Some one within must have noiselessly opened it to hear Doctor West's decree upon the patient.

Swiftly and silently Katherine slipped through the door and locked it behind her. For a moment she stood in the darkness, striving to master her throbbing excitement.

At length she spoke.

"Will you please turn on the light, Doctor Sherman," she said.

There was no answer; only a black and breathless silence.

"Please turn on the light, Doctor Sherman," Katherine repeated. "I cannot, for I do not know where the electric button is."

Again there was silence. Then Katherine heard something like a gasp. There was a click, and then the room, Doctor Sherman's study, burst suddenly into light.

Behind the desk, one hand still upon the electric key, stood Doctor Sherman. He was very thin and very white, and was worn, wild-eyed and dishevelled. He was breathing heavily and he stared at Katherine with the defiance of a desperate creature brought at last to bay.

"What do you want?" he demanded huskily.

"A little talk with you," replied Katherine, trying to speak calmly.

"You must excuse me. With Elsie so sick, I cannot talk."

She stood very straight before him. Her eyes never left his face.

"We must talk just the same," she returned. "When did you come home?"

"Last night."

"Why did you not let your friends know of your return? All day, in fact for several days, they have been sending telegrams to every place where they could conceive your being."

He did not answer.

"It looks very much as if you were trying to hide."

Again he did not reply.

"It looks very much," she steadily pursued, "as if your sister discharged the nurse and the servant in order that you might hide here in your own home without risk of discovery."

Still he did not answer.

"You need not reply to that question, for the reply is obvious. I guessed the meaning of the nurse's discharge as soon as I heard of it. I guessed that you were secretly hovering over Elsie, while all Westville thought you were hundreds of miles away. But tell me, how did you learn that Elsie was sick?"

He hesitated, then swallowed.

"I saw a notice of it in a little country paper."

"Ah, I thought so."

She moved forward and leaned across the desk. Their eyes were no more than a yard apart.

"Tell me," she said quietly, "why did you slip into town by night? Why are you hiding in your own home?"

A tremor ran through his slender frame. With an effort he tried to take the upperhand.

"You must excuse me," he said, with an attempt at sharp dignity. "I refuse to be cross-examined."

"Then I will answer for you. The reason, Doctor Sherman, is that you have a guilty conscience."

"That is not——"

"Do not lie," she interrupted quickly. "You realize what you have done, you are afraid it may become public, you are afraid of the consequences to yourself—and that is why you slipped back in the dead of night and lie hidden like a fugitive in your own house."

A spasm of agony crossed his face.

"For God's sake, tell me what you want and leave me!"

"I want you to clear my father."

"Clear your father?" he cried. "And how, if you please?"

"By confessing that he is innocent."

"When he is guilty!"

"You know he is not."

"He's guilty—he's guilty, I tell you! Besides," he added, wildly, "don't you see that if I proclaim him innocent I proclaim myself a perjured witness?"

She leaned a little farther across the desk.

"Is not that exactly what you are, Doctor Sherman?"

He shrank back as though struck. One hand went tremulously to his chin and he stared at her.

"No! No!" he burst out spasmodically. "It's not so! I shall not admit it! Would you have me ruin myself for all time? Would you have me ruin Elsie's future! Would you have me kill her love for me?"

"Then you will not confess?"

"I tell you there is nothing to confess!"

She gazed at him steadily a moment. Then she turned back to the door, softly unlocked and opened it. He started to rush through, but she raised a hand and stopped him.

"Just look," she commanded in a whisper.

He stared through the open door. They could see Elsie's white face upon the pillow, with the two dark braids beside it; and could see Doctor West hovering over her. He had not heard them, but Miss Sherman had, and she directed at Katherine a pale and hostile glance.

The young husband twisted his hands in agony.

"Oh, Elsie! Elsie!" he moaned.

Katherine closed the door, and turned again to Doctor Sherman.

"You have seen your work," she said. "Do you still persist in your innocence?"

He drew a deep, shivering breath and shrank away behind his desk, but did not answer.

Katherine followed him.

"Do you know how sick your wife is?"

"I heard your father say."

"She is swinging over eternity by a mere thread." Katherine leaned across the desk and her eyes gazed with an even greater fixity into his. "If the thread snaps, do you know who will have broken it?"

"Don't! Don't!" he begged.

"Her own husband," Katherine went on relentlessly.

A cry of agony escaped him.

"You saw that old man in there bending over her," she pursued, "trying with all his skill, with all his love, to save her—to save her from the peril you have plunged her into—and with never a bitter feeling against you in his heart. If she lives, it will be because of him. And yet that old man is ruined and has a blackened reputation. I ask you, do you know who ruined him?"

"Don't! Don't!" he cried, and he sank a crumpled figure at his desk, and buried his face in his arms.

"Look up!" cried Katherine sternly.

"Wait!" he moaned. "Wait!"

She passed around the desk and firmly raised his shoulders.

"Look me in the eyes!"

He lifted a face that worked convulsively.

She stood accusingly before him. "Out with the truth!" she commanded in a rising voice. "In the presence of your wife, perhaps dying, and dying as the result of your act—in the presence of that old man, whom you have ruined with your word—do you still dare to maintain your innocence? Out with the truth, I say!"

He sprang to his feet.

"I can stand it no longer!" he gasped in an agony that went to Katherine's heart. "It's killing me! It's been tearing me apart for months! What I have suffered—oh, what I have suffered! I'll tell you all—all! Oh, let me get it off my soul!"

The desperation of his outburst, the sight of his fine face convulsed with uttermost agony and repentance, worked a sudden revulsion in Katherine's heart. All her bitterness, her momentary sternness, rushed out of her, and there she was, quivering all over, hot tears in her eyes, gripping the hands of Elsie's husband.

"I'm so glad—not only for father's sake—but for your sake," she cried chokingly.

"Let me tell you at once! Let me get it out of myself!"

"First sit down," and she gently pressed him back into his chair and drew one up to face him. "And wait for a moment or two, till you feel a little calmer."

He bowed his head into his hands, and for a space breathed deeply and tremulously. Katherine stood waiting. Through the night sounded the brassy strains of "My Country 'Tis of Thee." Back at the Court House Blake's party was opening its great mass-meeting.

"I'm a coward—a coward!" Doctor Sherman groaned at length into his hands. And in a voice of utmost contrition he went on and told how, to gain money for the proper care of Elsie, he had been drawn into gambling in stocks; how he had made use of church funds to save himself in a falling market, and how this church money had, like his own, been swallowed down by Wall Street; how Blake had discovered the embezzlement, for the time had saved him, but later by threat of exposure had driven him to play the part he had against Doctor West.

"You must make this statement public, instantly!" Katherine exclaimed when he had finished.

He shrank back before that supreme humiliation. "Let me do it later—please, please!" he besought her.

"A day's delay will be——" She caught his arm. "Listen!" she commanded.

Both held their breath. Through the night came the stirring music of "The Star Spangled Banner."

"What is that?" he asked.

"The great rally of Mr. Blake's party at the Court House." Her next words drove in. "To-morrow Mr. Blake is going to capture the city, and be in position to rob it. And all because of your act, Doctor Sherman!"

"You are right, you are right!" he breathed.

She held out a pen to him.

"You must write your statement at once."

"Yes, yes," he cried, "only let it be short now. I'll make it in full later."

"You need write only a summary."

He seized the pen and dipped it into the ink and for a moment held it shaking over a sheet of paper.

"I cannot shape it—the words won't come."

"Shall I dictate it then?"

"Do! Please do!"

"You are willing to confess everything?"

"Everything!"

Katherine stood thinking for a moment at his side.

"Ready, then. Write, 'I embezzled funds from my church; Mr. Blake found me out, and replaced what I had taken, with no one being the wiser. Later, by the threat of exposing me if I refused, he compelled me to accuse Doctor West of accepting a bribe and still later he compelled me to testify in court against Doctor West. Mr. Blake's purpose in so doing was to remove Doctor West from his position, ruin the water-works, and buy them in at a bargain. I hereby confess and declare, of my own free will, that I have been guilty of lying and of perjury.' Do you want to say that?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"'And I further confess and declare that Dr. David West is innocent in every detail of the charges made against him. Signed, Harold Sherman.'"

He dropped his pen and sprang up.

"And now may I go in to Elsie?"

"You may."

He hurried noiselessly across the room and through the door. Katherine, picking up the precious paper she had worked so many months to gain, followed him. Miss Sherman saw them come in, but remained silent. Doctor West was bending over Elsie and did not hear their entrance.

Doctor Sherman tiptoed to the bedside, and stood gazing down, his breath held, hardly less pale than the soft-sleeping Elsie herself. Presently Doctor West straightened up and perceived the young minister. He started, then held out his hand.

"Why, Doctor Sherman!" he whispered eagerly. "I'm so glad you've come at last!"

The younger man drew back.

"You won't be willing to shake hands with me—when you know." Then he took a quick half step forward. "But tell me," he breathed, "is there—is there any hope?"

"I dare not speak definitely yet—but I think she is going to live."

"Thank God!" cried the young man.

Suddenly he collapsed upon the floor and embraced Doctor West about the knees, and knelt there sobbing out broken bits of sentences.

"Why—why," stammered Doctor West in amazement, "what does this mean?"

Katherine moved forward. Her voice quavered, partly from joy, partly from pity for the anguished figure upon the floor.

"It means you are cleared, father! This will explain." And she gave him Doctor Sherman's confession.

The old man read it, then passed a bewildered hand across his face.

"I—I don't understand this!"

"I'll explain it later," said Katherine.

"Is—is this true?" It was to the young minister that Doctor West spoke.

"Yes. And more. I can't ask you to forgive me!" sobbed Doctor Sherman. "It's beyond forgiveness! But I want to thank you for saving Elsie. At least you'll let me thank you for that!"

"What I have done here has been only my duty as a physician," said Doctor West gently. "As for the other matter"—he looked the paper through, still with bewilderment—"as for that, I'm afraid I am not the chief sufferer," he said slowly, gently. "I have been under a cloud, it is true, and I won't deny that it has hurt. But I am an old man, and it doesn't matter much. You are young, just beginning life. Of us two you are the one most to be pitied."

"Don't pity me—please!" cried the minister. "I don't deserve it!"

"I'm sorry—so sorry!" Doctor West shook his head. Apparently he had forgotten the significance of this confession to himself. "I have always loved Elsie, and I have always admired you and been proud of you. So if my forgiveness means anything to you, why I forgive you with all my heart!"

A choking sound came from the bowed figure, but no words. His embracing arms fell away from Doctor West. He knelt there limply, his head bowed upon his bosom. There was a moment of breathless silence. In the background Miss Sherman stood looking on, white, tense, dry-eyed.

Doctor Sherman turned slowly, fearfully, toward the bed.

"But, Elsie," he whispered in a dry, lost voice. "It's all bad—but that's the worst of all. When she knows, she never can forgive me!"

Katherine laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"If you think that, then you don't know Elsie. She will be pained, but she loves you with all her soul; she would forgive you anything so long as you loved her, and she would follow you through every misery to the ends of the world."

"Do you think so?" he breathed; and then he crept to the bed and buried his face upon it.

Katherine looked down upon him for a moment. Then her own concerns began flooding back upon her. She realized that she had not yet won the fight. She had only gained a weapon.

"I must go now," she whispered to her father, taking the paper from his hand.

Throbbing with returned excitement, she hurried out to the dimly comprehended, desperate effort that lay before her.



CHAPTER XXIV

BILLY HARPER WRITES A STORY

As Katherine crossed the porch and went down the steps she saw, entering the yard, a tall, square-hatted apparition.

"Is that you, Miss Katherine?" it called softly to her.

"Yes, Mr. Hollingsworth."

"I was looking for you." He turned and they walked out of the yard together. "I went to your house, and your aunt told me you were here. I've got it!" he added excitedly.

"Got what?"

"The agreement!"

She stopped short and seized his arm.

"You mean between Blake, Peck, and Manning?"

"Yes. I've got it!"

"Signed?"

"All signed!" And he slapped the breast pocket of his old frock-coat.

"Let me see it! Please!"

He handed it to her, and by the light of a street lamp she glanced it through.

"Oh, it's too good to believe!" she murmured exultantly. "Oh, oh!" She thrust it into her bosom, where it lay beside Doctor Sherman's confession. "Come, we must hurry!" she cried. And with her arm through his they set off in the direction of the Square.

"When did Mr. Manning get this?" she asked, after a moment.

"I saw him about an hour ago. He had then just got it."

"It's splendid! Splendid!" she ejaculated. "But I have something, too!"

"Yes?" queried the old man.

"Something even better." And as they hurried on she told him of Doctor Sherman's confession.

Old Hosie burst into excited congratulations, but she quickly checked him.

"We've no time now to rejoice," she said. "We must think how we are going to use these statements—how we are going to get this information before the people, get it before them at once, and get it before them so they must believe it."

They walked on in silent thought. From the moment they had left the Shermans' gate the two had heard a tremendous cheering from the direction of the Square, and had seen a steady, up-reaching glow, at intervals brilliantly bespangled by rockets and roman candles. Now, as they came into Main Street, they saw that the Court House yard was jammed with an uproarious multitude. Within the speakers' stand was throned the Westville Brass Band; enclosing the stand in an imposing semicircle was massed the Blake Marching Club, in uniforms, their flaring torches adding to the illumination of the festoons of incandescent bulbs; and spreading fanwise from this uniformed nucleus it seemed that all of Westville was assembled—at least all of Westville that did not watch at fevered bedsides.

At the moment that Katherine and Old Hosie, walking along the southern side of Main Street, came opposite the stand, the first speaker concluded his peroration and resumed his seat. There was an outburst of "Blake! Blake! Blake!" from the enthusiastic thousands; but the Westville Brass Band broke in with the chorus of "Marching Through Georgia." The stirring thunder of the band had hardly died away, when the thousands of voices again rose in cries of "Blake! Blake! Blake!"

The chairman with difficulty quieted the crowd, and urged them to have patience, as all the candidates were going to speak, and Blake was not to speak till toward the last. Kennedy was the next orator, and he told the multitude, with much flinging heavenward of loose-jointed arms, what an unparalleled administration the officers to be elected on the morrow would give the city, and how first and foremost it would be their purpose to settle the problem of the water-works in such a manner as to free the city forever from the dangers of another epidemic such as they were now experiencing. As supreme climax to his speech, he lauded the ability, character and public spirit of Blake till superlatives could mount no higher.

When he sat down the crowd went well-nigh mad. But amid the cheering for the city's favourite, some one shouted the name of Doctor West and with it coupled a vile epithet. At once Doctor West's name swept through the crowd, hissed, jeered, cursed. This outbreak made clear one ominous fact. The enthusiasm of the multitude was not just ordinary, election-time enthusiasm. Beneath it was smouldering a desire of revenge for the ills they had suffered and were suffering—a desire which at a moment might flame up into the uncontrollable fury of a mob.

Katherine clutched Old Hosie's arm.

"Did you hear those cries against my father?"

"Yes."

"Well, I know now what I shall do!"

He saw that her eyes were afire with decision.

"What?"

"I am going across there, watch my chance, slip out upon the speakers' stand, and expose and denounce Mr. Blake before Mr. Blake's own audience!"

The audacity of the plan for a moment caught Old Hosie's breath. Then its dramatic quality fired his imagination.

"Gorgeous!" he exclaimed.

"Come on!" she cried.

She started across the street, with Old Hosie at her heels. But before she reached the opposite curb she paused, and turned slowly back.

"What's the matter?" asked Old Hosie.

"It won't do. The people on the stand would pull me down before I got started speaking. And even if I spoke, the people would not believe me. I have got to put this evidence"—she pressed the documents within her bosom—"before their very eyes. No, we have got to think of some other way."

By this time they were back in the seclusion of the doorway of the Express Building, where they had previously been standing. For several moments the hoarse, vehement oratory of a tired throat rasped upon their heedless ears. Once or twice Old Hosie stole a glance at Katherine's tensely thoughtful face, then returned to his own meditation.

Presently she touched him on the arm. He looked up.

"I have it this time!" she said, with the quiet of suppressed excitement.

"Yes?"

"We're going to get out an extra!"

"An extra?" he exclaimed blankly.

"Yes. Of the Express!"

"An extra of the Express?"

"Yes. Get it out before this crowd scatters, and in it reproductions of these documents!"

He stared at her. "Son of Methuselah!" Then he whistled. Then his look became a bit strange, and there was a strange quality to his voice when he said:

"So you are going to give Arnold Bruce's paper the credit of the exposure?"

His tone told her the meaning that lay behind his words. He had known of the engagement, and he knew that it was now broken. She flushed.

"It's the best way," she said shortly.

"But you can't do it alone!"

"Of course not." Her voice began to gather energy. "We've got to get the Express people here at once—and especially Mr. Harper. Everything depends on Mr. Harper. He'll have to get the paper out."

"Yes! Yes!" said Old Hosie, catching her excitement.

"You look for him here in this crowd—and, also, if you can see to it, send some one to get the foreman and his people. I'll look for Mr. Harper at his hotel. We'll meet here at the office."

With that they hurried away on their respective errands. Arrived at the National House, where Billy Harper lived, Katherine walked into the great bare office and straight up to the clerk, whom the mass-meeting had left as the room's sole occupant.

"Is Mr. Harper in?" she asked quickly.

The clerk, one of the most prodigious of local beaux, was startled by this sudden apparition.

"I—I believe he is."

"Please tell him at once that I wish to see him."

He fumbled the white wall of his lofty collar with an embarrassed hand.

"Excuse me, Miss West, but the fact is, I'm afraid he can't see you."

"Give him my name and tell him I simply must see him."

The clerk's embarrassment waxed greater.

"I—I guess I should have said it the other way around," he stammered. "I'm afraid you won't want to see him."

"Why not?"

"The fact is—he's pretty much cut up, you know—and he's been so worried that—that—well, the plain fact is," he blurted out, "Mr. Harper has been drinking."

"To-night?"

"Yes."

"Much?"

"Well—I'm afraid quite a little."

"But he's here?"

"He's in the bar-room."

Katherine's heart had been steadily sinking.

"I must see him anyhow!" she said desperately. "Please call him out!"

The clerk hesitated, in even deeper embarrassment. This affair was quite without precedent in his career.

"You must call him out—this second! Didn't you hear me?"

"Certainly, certainly."

He came hastily from behind his desk and disappeared through a pair of swinging wicker doors. After a moment he reappeared, alone, and his manner showed a degree of embarrassment even more acute.

Katherine crossed eagerly to meet him.

"You found Mr. Harper?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I couldn't make him understand. And even if I could, he's—he's—well," he added with a painful effort, "he's in no condition for you to talk to, Miss West."

Katherine gazed whitely at the clerk for a moment. Then without a word she stepped by him and passed through the wicker door. With a glance she took in the garishly lighted room—its rows of bottles, its glittering mirrors, its white-aproned bartender, its pair of topers whose loyalty to the bar was stronger than the lure of oratory and music at the Square. And there at a table, his head upon his arms, sat the loosely hunched body of him who was the foundation of all her present hopes.

She moved swiftly across the sawdusted floor and shook the acting editor by the shoulder.

"Mr. Harper!" she called into his ear.

She shook him again, and again she called his name.

"Le' me 'lone," he grunted thickly. "Wanter sleep."

She was conscious that the two topers had paused in mid-drink and were looking her way with a grinning, alcoholic curiosity. She shook the editor with all her strength.

"Mr. Harper!" she called fiercely.

"G'way!" he mumbled. "'M busy. Wanter sleep."

Katherine gazed down at the insensate mass in utter hopelessness. Without him she could do nothing, and the precious minutes were flying. Through the night came a rumble of applause and fast upon it the music of another patriotic air.

In desperation she turned to the bartender.

"Can't you help me rouse him?" she cried. "I've simply got to speak to him!"

That gentleman had often been appealed to by frantic women as against customers who had bought too liberally. But Katherine was a new variety in his experience. There was a great deal too much of him about the waist and also beneath the chin, but there was good-nature in his eyes, and he came from behind his counter and bore himself toward Katherine with a clumsy and ornate courtesy.

"Don't see how you can, Miss. He's been hittin' an awful pace lately. You see for yourself how far gone he is."

"But I must speak to him—I must! Surely there is some extreme measure that would bring him to his senses!"

"But, excuse me; you see, Miss, Mr. Harper is a reg'lar guest of the hotel, and I wouldn't dare go to extremes. If I was to make him mad——"

"I'll take all the blame!" she cried. "And afterward he'll thank you for it!"

The bartender scratched his thin hair.

"Of course, I want to help you, Miss, and since you put it that way, all right. You say I can go the limit?"

"Yes! Yes!"

The bartender retired behind his bar and returned with a pail of water. He removed the young editor's hat.

"Stand back, Miss; it's ice cold," he said; and with a swing of his pudgy arms he sent the water about Harper's head, neck, and upper body.

The young fellow staggered up with a gasping cry. His blinking eyes saw the bartender, with the empty pail. He reached for the tumbler before him.

"Damn you, Murphy!" he growled. "I'll pay you——"

But Katherine stepped quickly forward and touched his dripping sleeve.

"Mr. Harper!" she said.

He slowly turned his head. Then the hand with the upraised tumbler sank to the table, and he stared at her.

"Mr. Harper," she said sharply, slowly, trying to drive her words into his dulled brain, "I've got to speak to you! At once!"

He continued to blink at her stupidly. At length his lips opened.

"Miss West," he said thickly.

She shook him fiercely.

"Pull yourself together! I've got to speak to you!"

At this moment Mr. Murphy, who had gone once more behind his bar, reappeared bearing a glass. This he held out to Harper.

"Here, Billy, put this down. It'll help straighten you up."

Harper took the glass in a trembling hand and swallowed its contents.

"And now, Miss," said the bartender, putting Harper's dry hat on him, "the thing to do is to get him out in the cold air, and walk him round a bit. I'd do it for you myself," he added gallantly, "but everybody's down at the Square and there ain't no one here to relieve me."

"Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy."

"It's nothing at all, Miss," said he with a grandiloquent gesture of a hairy, bediamonded hand. "Glad to do it."

She slipped her arm through the young editor's.

"And now, Mr. Harper, we must go."

Billy Harper vaguely understood the situation and there was a trace of awakening shame in his husky voice.

"Are you sure—you want to be seen with me—like this?"

"I must, whether I want to or not," she said briefly; and she led him through the side door out into the frosty night.

The period that succeeded will ever remain in Katherine's mind as matchless in her life for agonized suspense. She was ever crying out frantically to herself, why did this man she led have to be in such a condition at this the time when he was needed most? While she rapidly walked her drenched and shivering charge through the deserted back streets, the enthusiasm of Court House Square reverberated maddeningly in her ears. She realized how rapidly time was flying—and yet, aflame with desire for action as she was, all she could do was to lead this brilliant, stupefied creature to and fro, to and fro. She wondered if she would be able to bring him to his senses in time to be of service. To her impatience, which made an hour of every moment, it seemed she never would. But her hope was all on him, and so doggedly she kept him going.

Presently he began to lurch against her less heavily and less frequently; and soon, his head hanging low in humiliation, he started shiveringly to mumble out an abject apology. She cut him short.

"We've no time for apologies. There's work to be done. Is your head clear enough to understand?"

"I think so," he said humbly, albeit somewhat thickly.

"Listen then! And listen hard!"

Briefly and clearly she outlined to him her discoveries and told him of the documents she had just secured. She did not realize it, but this recital of hers was, for the purpose of sobering him, better far than a douche of ice-water, better far than walking in the tingling air. She was appealing to, stimulating, the most sensitive organ of the born newspaper man, his sense of news. Before she was through he had come to a pause beneath a sputtering arc light, and was interrupting her with short questions, his eyes ablaze with excitement.

"God!" he ejaculated when she had finished, "that would make the greatest newspaper story that ever broke loose in this town!"

She trembled with an excitement equal to his own.

"And I want you to make it into the greatest newspaper story that ever broke loose in this town!"

"But to-morrow the voting——"

"There's no to-morrow about it! We've got to act to-night. You must get out an extra of the Express."

"An extra of the Express!"

"Yes. And it must be on the streets before that mass-meeting breaks up."

"Oh, my God, my God!" Billy whispered in awe to himself, forgetting how cold he was as his mind took in the plan. Then he started away almost on a run. "We'll do it! But first, we've got to get the press-room gang."

"I've seen to that. I think we'll find them waiting at the office."

"You don't say!" ejaculated Billy. "Miss West, to-morrow, when there's more time, I'm going to apologize to you, and everybody, for——"

"If you get out this extra, you won't need to apologize to anybody."

"But to-night, if you'll let me," continued Billy, "I want you to let me say that you're a wonder!"

Katherine let this praise go by unheeded, and as they hurried toward the Square she gave him details she had omitted in her outline. When they reached the Express office they found Old Hosie, who told them that the foreman and the mechanical staff were in the press-room. A shout from Billy down the stairway brought the foreman running up.

"Do you know what's doing, Jake?" cried Billy.

"Yes. Mr. Hollingsworth told me."

"Everything ready?"

"Sure, Billy. We're waiting for your copy."

"Good! First of all get these engraved." He excitedly handed the foreman Katherine's two documents. "Each of 'em three columns wide. We'll run 'em on the front page. And, Jake, if you let those get lost, I'll shoot you so full of holes your wife'll think she's married to a screen door! Now chase along with you!"

Billy threw off his drenched coat, slipped into an old one hanging on a hook, dropped into a chair before a typewriter, ran in a sheet of paper, and without an instant's hesitation began to rattle off the story—and Katherine, in a sort of fascination, stood gazing at that worth-while spectacle, a first-class newspaperman in full action.

But suddenly he gave a cry of dismay and his arms fell to his sides.

"My mind sees the story all right," he groaned. "I don't know whether it's that ice-water or the drink, but my arms are so shaky I can't hit the keys straight."

On the instant Katherine had him out of the chair and was in his place.

"I studied typewriting along with my law," she said rapidly. "Dictate it to me on the machine."

There was not a word of comment. At once Billy began talking, and the keys began to whir beneath Katherine's hands. The first page finished, Billy snatched it from her, gave a roar of "Copy!" glanced it through with a correcting pencil, and thrust it into the hands of an in-rushing boy.

As the boy scuttled away, a thunderous cheering arose from the Court House yard—applause that outsounded a dozen-fold all that had gone before.

"What's that?" asked Katherine of Old Hosie, who stood at the window looking down upon the Square.

"It's Blake, trying to speak. They're giving him the ovation of his life!"

Katherine's face set. "H'm!" said Billy grimly, and plunged again into his dictation. Now and then the uproar that followed a happy phrase of Blake almost drowned the voice of Billy, now and then Old Hosie from his post at the window broke in with a sentence of description of the tumultuous scene without; but despite these interruptions the story rattled swiftly on. Again and again Billy ran to the sink at the back of the office and let the clearing water splash over his head; his collar was a shapeless rag; he had to keep thrusting his dripping hair back from his forehead; his slight, chilled body was shivering in every member; but the story kept coming, coming, coming, a living, throbbing creation from his thin and twitching lips.

As Katherine's flying hands set down the words, she thrilled as though this story were a thing entirely new to her. For Billy Harper, whatever faults inheritance or habit had fixed upon him, was a reporter straight from God. His trained mind had instantly seized upon and mastered all the dramatic values of the complicated story, and his English, though crude and rough-and-tumble from his haste, was vivid passionate, rousing. He told how Doctor West was the victim of a plot, a plot whose great victim was the city and people of Westville, and this plot he outlined in all its details. He told of Doctor Sherman's part, at Blake's compulsion. He told of the secret league between Blake and Peck. He declared the truth of the charges for which Bruce was then lying in the county jail. And finally—though this he did at the beginning of his story—he drove home in his most nerve-twanging words the fact that Blake the benefactor, Blake the applauded, was the direct cause of the typhoid epidemic.

As a fresh sheet was being run into the machine toward the end of the story there was another tremendous outburst from the Square, surpassing even the one of half an hour before.

"Blake's just finished his speech," called Old Hosie from the window. "The crowd wants to carry him on their shoulders."

"They'd better hurry up; this is one of their last chances!" cried Billy.

Then he saw the foreman enter with a look of concern. "Any thing wrong, Jake?"

"One of the linotype men has skipped out," was the answer.

"Well, what of that?" said Harper. "You've got one left."

"It means that we'll be delayed in getting out the paper. I hadn't noticed it before, but Grant's been gone some time. We're quite a bit behind you, and Simmons alone can't begin to handle that copy as fast as you're sending it down."

"Do the best you can," said Billy.

He started at the dictation again. Then he broke off and called sharply to the foreman:

"Hold on, Jake. D'you suppose Grant slipped out to give the story away?"

"I don't know. But Grant was a Blake man."

Billy swore under his breath.

"But he hadn't seen the best part of the story," said the foreman. "I'd given him only that part about Blake and Peck."

"Well, anyhow, it's too late for him to hurt us any," said Billy, and once more plunged into the dictation.

Fifteen minutes later the story was finished, and Katherine leaned back in her chair with aching arms, while Billy wrote a lurid headline across the entire front page. With this he rushed down into the composing-room to give orders about the make-up. When he returned he carried a bunch of long strips.

"These are the proofs of the whole thing, documents and all, except the last part of the story," he said. "Let's see if they've got it all straight."

He laid the proofs on Katherine's desk and was drawing a chair up beside her, when the telephone rang.

"Who can want to talk to us at such an hour?" he impatiently exclaimed, taking up the receiver.

"Hello! Who's this?... What!... All right. Hold the wire."

With a surprised look he pushed the telephone toward Katherine.

"Somebody to talk to you," he said.

"To talk to me!" exclaimed Katherine. "Who?"

"Harrison Blake," said Billy.



CHAPTER XXV

KATHERINE FACES THE ENEMY

Katherine took up the receiver in tremulous hands.

"Hello! Is this Mr. Blake?"

"Yes," came a familiar voice over the wire. "Is this Miss West?"

"Yes. What is it?"

"I have a matter which I wish to discuss with you immediately."

"I am engaged for this evening," she returned, as calmly as she could. "If to-morrow you still desire to see me, I can possibly arrange it then."

"I must see you to-night—at once!" he insisted. "It is a matter of the utmost importance. Not so much to me as to you," he added meaningly.

"If it is so important, then suppose you come here," she replied.

"I cannot possibly do so. I am bound here by a number of affairs. I have anticipated that you would come, and have sent my car for you. It will be there in two minutes."

Katherine put her hand over the mouthpiece, and repeated Blake's request to Old Hosie and Billy Harper.

"What shall I do?" she asked.

"Tell him to go to!" said Billy promptly. "You've got him where you want him. Don't pay any more attention to him."

"I'd like to know what he's up to," mused Old Hosie.

"And so would I," agreed Katherine, thoughtfully. "I can't do anything more here; he can't hurt me; so I guess I'll go."

She removed her hand from the mouthpiece and leaned toward it.

"Where are you, Mr. Blake?"

"At my home."

"Very well. I am coming."

She stood up.

"Will you come with me?" she asked Old Hosie.

"Of course," said the old lawyer with alacrity. And then he chuckled. "I'd like to see how the Senator looks to-night!"

"I'll just take these proofs along," she said, thrusting them inside her coat.

The next instant she and Old Hosie were hurrying down the stairway. As they came into the street the Westville Brass Band blew the last notes of "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," out of cornets and trombones; the great crowd, intoxicated with enthusiasm, responded with palm-blistering applause; and then the candidate for president of the city council arose to make his oratorical contribution. He had got no further than his first period when Blake's automobile glided up before the Express office, and at once Katherine and Old Hosie stepped into the tonneau.

They sped away from this maelstrom of excitement into the quiet residential streets, Katherine wondering what Blake desired to see her about, and wondering if there could possibly be some flaw in her plan that she had overlooked, and if after all Blake still had some weapon in reserve with which he could defeat her. Five minutes later they were at Blake's door. They were instantly admitted, and Katherine was informed that Blake awaited her in his library.

She had had no idea in what state of mind she would find Blake, but she had at least expected to find him alone. But instead, when she entered the library with Old Hosie, a small assembly rose to greet her. There was Blake, Blind Charlie Peck, Manning, and back in a shadowy corner a rather rotund gentleman, whom she had observed in Westville the last few days, and whom she knew to be Mr. Brown of the National Electric & Water Company.

Blake's face was pale and set, and his dark eyes gleamed with an unusual brilliance. But in his compressed features Katherine could read nothing of what was in his mind.

"Good evening," he said with cold politeness.

"Will you please sit down, Miss West. And you also, Mr. Hollingsworth."

Katherine thanked him with a nod, and seated herself. She found her chair so placed that she was the centre of the gaze of the little assembly.

"I take it for granted, Miss West," Blake began steadily, formally, "that you are aware of the reason for my requesting you to come here."

"On the other hand, I must confess myself entirely ignorant," Katherine quietly returned.

"Pardon me if I am forced to believe otherwise. But nevertheless, I will explain. It has come to me that you are now engaged in getting out an issue of the Express, in which you charge that Mr. Peck and myself are secretly in collusion to defraud the city. Is that correct?"

"Entirely so," said Katherine.

She felt full command of herself, yet every instant she was straining to peer ahead and discover, before it fell, the suspected counter-stroke.

"Before going further," Blake continued, "I will say that Mr. Peck and I, though personal and political enemies, must join forces against such a libel directed at us both. This will explain Mr. Peck's presence in my house for the first time in his life. Now, to resume our business. What you are about to publish is a libel. It is for your sake, chiefly, that I have asked you here."

"For my sake?"

"For your sake. To warn you, if you are not already aware of it, of the danger you are plunging into headlong. But surely you are acquainted with our libel laws."

"I am."

His face, aside from its cold, set look, was still without expression; his voice was low-pitched and steady.

"Then of course you understand your risk," he continued. "You have had a mild illustration of the working of the law in the case of Mr. Bruce. But the case against him was not really pressed. The court might not deal so leniently with you. I believe you get my meaning?"

"Perfectly," said Katherine.

There was a silence. Katherine was determined not to speak first, but to force Blake to take the lead.

"Well?" said he.

"I was waiting to hear what else you had to say," she replied.

"Well, you are aware that what you purpose printing is a most dangerous libel?"

"I am aware that you seem to think it so."

"There is no thinking about it; it is libel!" he returned. For the first time there was a little sharpness in his voice. "And now, what are you going to do?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Suppress the paper."

"Is that advice, or a wish, or a command?"

"Suppose I say all three."

Her eyes did not leave his pale, intent face. She was instantly more certain that he had some weapon in reserve. But still she failed to guess what it might be.

"Well, what are you going to do?" he repeated.

"I am going to print the paper," said Katherine.

An instant of stupefied silence followed her quiet answer.

"You are, are you?" cried Blind Charlie, springing up. "Well, let me——"

"Sit down, Peck!" Blake ordered sharply

"Come, give me a chance at her!"

"Sit down! I'm handling this!" Blake cried with sudden harshness.

"Well, then, show her where she's at!" grumbled Blind Charlie, subsiding into his chair.

Blake turned back to Katherine. His face was again impassive.

"And so it is your intention to commit this monstrous libel?" he asked in his former composed tone.

"Perhaps it is not libel," said Katherine.

"You mean that you think you have proofs?"

"No. That is not my meaning."

"What then do you mean?"

"I mean that I have proofs."

"Ah, at last we are coming to the crux of the matter. Since you have proofs for your statements, you think there is no libel?"

"I believe that is sound law," said Katherine.

"It is sound enough law," he said. He leaned toward her, and there was now the glint of triumph in his eyes. "But suppose the proofs were not sound?"

Katherine started.

"The proofs not sound?"

"Yes. I suppose your article is based upon testimony?"

"Of course."

His next words were spoken slowly, that each might sink deeply in.

"Well, suppose your witnesses had found they were mistaken and had repudiated their testimony? What then?"

She sank back in her chair. At last the expected blow had fallen. She sat dazed, thinking wildly. Had they got to Doctor Sherman since she had seen him, and forced him to recant? Had Manning, offered the world by them in this crisis, somehow sold her out? She searched the latter's face with consternation. But he wore a rather stolid look that told her nothing.