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 bendingover 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 fundsto 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 theink 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 amoment. 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.
AsKatherine 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 asteady, 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 theExpressBuilding, 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 theExpress!”
“An extra of theExpress?”
“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 theExpresspeople 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 getthe 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 simplymustsee 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 simplygotto 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 sherapidly 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. Shewas 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 theExpress.”
“An extra of theExpress!”
“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’mgoing 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 theExpressoffice 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 intoa 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 greatvictim 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 quitea 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.
Katherinetook 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 greatcrowd, 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 theExpressoffice, 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. Butin 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 theExpress, 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 forthe 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; itislibel!” 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 thismonstrous 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 Ihaveproofs.”
“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 worldby 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.
Blake read the effect of his words in her white face and dismayed manner.
“Suppose they have repudiated their statements? What then?” he crushingly persisted.
She caught desperately at her courage and her vanishing triumph.
“But they have not repudiated.”
“You think not? You shall see!”
He turned to Blind Charlie. “Tell him to step in.”
Blind Charlie moved quickly to a side door. Katherine leaned forward and stared after him, breathless, her heart stilled. She expected the following moment to see the slender figure of Doctor Sherman enter the room, and hear his pallid lips deny he had ever made the confession of a few hours before.
Blind Charlie opened the door.
“They’re ready for you,” he called.
It was all Katherine could do to keep from springing up and letting out a sob of relief. For it was not Doctor Sherman who entered. It was the broad and sumptuous presence of Elijah Stone, detective. He crossed and stood before Blake.
“Mr. Stone,” said Blake, sharply, “I wantyou to answer a few questions for the benefit of Miss West. First of all, you were employed by Miss West on a piece of detective work, were you not?”
“I was,” said Mr. Stone, avoiding Katherine’s eye.
“And the nature of your employment was to try to discover evidence of an alleged conspiracy against the city on my part?”
“It was.”
“And you made to her certain reports?”
“I did.”
“Let me inform you that she has used those reports as the basis of a libellous story which she is about to print. Now answer me, did you give her any real evidence that would stand the test of a court room?”
Mr. Stone gazed at the ceiling.
“My statements to her were mere surmises,” he said with the glibness of a rehearsed answer. “Nothing but conjecture—no evidence at all.”
“What is your present belief concerning these conjectures?”
“I have since discovered that my conjectures were all mistakes.”
“That will do, Mr. Stone!”
Blake turned quickly upon Katherine. “Well, now what have you got to say?” he demanded.
She could have laughed in her joy.
“First of all,” she called to the withdrawingdetective, “I have this to say to you, Mr. Stone. When you sold out to these people, I hope you made them pay you well.”
The detective flushed, but he had no chance to reply.
“This is no time for levity, Miss West!” Blake said sharply. “Now you see your predicament. Now you see what sort of testimony your libel is built upon.”
“But my libel is not built upon that testimony.”
“Not built——” He now first observed that Katherine was smiling. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said. That my story is not based on Mr. Stone’s testimony.”
There were exclamations from Mr. Brown and Blind Charlie.
“Eh—what?” said Blake. “But you hired Stone as a detective?”
“And he was eminently successful in carrying out the purpose for which I hired him. That purpose was to be watched, and bought off, by you.”
Blake sank back and stared at her.
“Then your story is based——”
“Partly on the testimony of Doctor Sherman,” she said.
Blake came slowly up to his feet.
“Doctor Sherman?” he breathed.
“Yes, of Doctor Sherman.”
Blind Charlie moved quickly forward.
“What’s that?” he cried.
“It’s not true!” burst from Blake’s lips. “Doctor Sherman is in Canada!”
“When I saw him two hours ago he was at his wife’s bedside.”
“It’s not true!” Blake huskily repeated.
“And I might add, Mr. Blake,” Katherine pursued, “that he made a full statement of everything—everything!—and that he gave me a signed confession.”
Blake stared at her blankly. A sickly pallor was creeping over his face.
Katherine stood up.
“And I might furthermore add, gentlemen,” she went on, now also addressing Blind Charlie, “that I know all about the water-works deal, and the secret agreement among you.”
“Hold on! You’re going too far!” the old politician cried savagely. “You’ve got no evidence against me!”
“I could hardly help having it, since I was present at your proceedings.”
“You?”
“Personally and by proxy. I am the agent of Mr. Seymour of New York. Mr. Hartsell here, otherwise Mr. Manning, has represented me, and has turned over to me the agreement you signed to-day.”
They whirled about upon Manning, who continued unperturbed in his chair.
“What she says is straight, gentlemen,” he said. “I have only been acting for Miss West.”
A horrible curse fell from the thick, loose lips of Blind Charlie Peck. Blake, his sickly pallor deepening, stared from Manning to Katherine.
“It isn’t so! It can’t be so!” he breathed wildly.
“If you want to see just what I’ve got, here it is,” said Katherine, and she tossed the bundle of proofs upon the desk.
Blake seized the sheets in feverish hands. Blind Charlie stepped to his side, and Mr. Brown slipped forward out of his corner and peered over their shoulders. First they saw the two facsimiles, then their eyes swept in the leading points of Billy Harper’s fiery story. Then a low cry escaped from Blake. He had come upon Billy Harper’s great page-wide headline:
“BLAKE CONSPIRES TO SWINDLE WESTVILLE;DIRECT CAUSE OF CITY’S SICK AND DEAD.”
At that Blake collapsed into his chair and gazed with ashen face at the black, accusing letters. This relentless summary of the situation appalled them all into a moment’s silence.
Blind Charlie was the first to speak.
“That paper must never come out!” he shouted.
Blake raised his gray-hued face.
“How are you going to stop it?”
“Here’s how,” cried Peck, his one eye ablaze with fierce energy. “That crowd at the Square is still all for you, Blake. Don’t let the girl out of the house! I’ll rush to the Square, rouse the mob properly, and they’ll raid the office, rip up the presses, plates, paper, every damned thing!”
“No—no—I’ll not stand for that!” Blake burst out.
But Blind Charlie had already started quickly away. Not so quickly, however, but that the very sufficient hand of Manning was about his wrist before he reached the door.
“I guess we won’t be doing that to-night, Mr. Peck,” Manning said quietly.
The old politician stood shaking with rage and erupting profanity. But presently this subsided, and he stood, as did the others, gazing down at Blake. Blake sat in his chair, silent, motionless, with scarcely a breath, his eyes fixed on the headline. His look was as ghastly as a dead man’s, a look of utter ruin, of ruin so terrible and complete that his dazed mind could hardly comprehend it.
There was a space of profound silence in theroom. But after a time Blind Charlie’s face grew malignantly, revengefully jocose.
“Well, Blake,” said he, “I guess this won’t hurt me much after all. I guess I haven’t much reputation to lose. But as for you, who started this business—you the pure, moral, high-minded reformer——”
He interrupted himself by raising a hand.
“Listen!”
Faintly, from the direction of the Square, came the dim roar of cheering, and then the outburst of the band. Blind Charlie, with a cynical laugh, clapped a hand upon Blake’s shoulder.
“Don’t you hear ’em, Blake? Brace up! The people still are for you!”
Blake did not reply. The old man bent down, his face now wholly hard.
“And anyhow, Blake, I’m getting this satisfaction out of the business. I’ve had it in for you for a dozen years, and now you’re going to get it good and plenty! Good night and to hell with you!”
Blake did not look up. Manning slipped an arm through the old man’s.
“I’ll go along with you for a little while,” said Manning quietly. “Just to see that you don’t start any trouble.”
As the pair were going out Mr. Brown, who had thus far not said a single word, bent his fatherly figure over Blake.
“Of course, you realize, Mr. Blake, that our relations are necessarily at an end,” he said in a low voice.
“Of course,” Blake said dully.
“I’m very sorry we cannot help you, but of course you realize we cannot afford to be involved in a mess like this. Good night.” And he followed the others out, Old Hosie behind him.
For a space Katherine stood alone, gazing down upon Blake’s bowed and silent figure. Now that it was all over, now that his allies had all deserted him, to see this man whom she had known as so proud, so strong, so admired, with such a boundless future—who had once been her own ideal of a great man—who had once declared himself her lover—to see this man now brought so low, stirred in her a strange emotion, in which there was something of pity, something of sympathy, and a tugging remembrance of the love he long ago had offered.
But the noise of the front door closing upon the men recalled her to herself, and very softly, so as not to disturb him, she started away. Her hand was on the knob, when there sounded a dry and husky voice from behind her.
“Wait, Katherine! Wait!”