But presently the sobs subsided, as though shut off by main force, and Katherine rose to her feet. She wiped her eyes and looked at her father, a wan smile on her reddened, still tremulous face.

“What a hope-inspiring lawyer you have, father!”

“I would not want a truer,” said he loyally.

“We won’t have one of these cloud-bursts again, I promise you. But when you have been under a strain for months, and things are stretched tighter and tighter, and at last something makes things snap, why you just can’t help—well,” she ended, “a man would have done something else, I suppose, but it might have been just as bad.”

“Worse!” avowed her father.

“Anyhow, it’s all over. I’ll just repair some of the worst ravages of the storm, and then we’ll talk about our programme for the trial.”

As she was arranging her hair before her father’s mirror, she saw, in the glass, the old man stoop and take something from the waste-basket. Turning his back to her, he cautiously examined the object.

She left the mirror and came up behind him.

“What are you looking at, dear?”

He started, and glanced up.

“Oh—er—that editorial Mr. Bruce referred to.” He rubbed his head dazedly. “If that should happen, with me even indirectly the cause of it—why, Katherine, it really would be pretty bad!” He held out the Clarion. “Perhaps, after all, you had better read it.”

She took the paper. The Clarion had from the first opposed the city’s owning the water-works, and the editorial declared that the present situation gave the paper, and all those who had held a similar opinion, their long-awaited triumph and vindication. “This failure is only what invariably happens whenever a city tries municipal ownership,” declared the editorial. “The situation has grown so unbearably acute that the city’s only hope of good water lies in the sale of the system to some private concern, which will give us that superior service which is always afforded by private capital. Westville is upon the eve of a city election, and we most emphatically urge upon both parties that they make the chief plank of their platforms the immediate sale of our utterly discredited water-works to some private company.”

The editorial did not stir Katherine as it had appeared to stir Bruce, nor even in the milder degree it had stirred Doctor West. She was interested in the water-works only in so far as it concerned her father, and the Clarion’s proposal had no apparent bearing on his guilt or innocence.

She laid the Clarion on the table, without comment, and proceeded to discuss the coming trial. The only course she had to suggest was that they plead for a postponement on the ground that they needed more time in which to prepare their defense. If that plea were denied, then before them seemed certain conviction. On that plea, then, they decided to place all their hope.

When this matter had been talked out Doctor West took the Clarion from the table and again read the editorial with troubled face, while Katherine walked to and fro across the floor, her mind all on the trial.

“If the town does sell, it will be too bad!” he sighed.

“I suppose so,” said Katherine mechanically.

“It has reached me that people are saying that the system isn’t worth anything like what we paid for it.”

“Is that so?” she asked absently.

Doctor West drew himself up and his faded cheeks flushed indignantly.

“No, it is not so. I don’t know what’s wrong, but it’s the very best system of its size in the Middle West!”

She paused.

“Forgive me—I wasn’t paying any attention to what I was saying. I’m sure it is.”

She resumed her pacing.

“But if they sell out to some company,” Doctor West continued, “the company will probably get it for a third, or less, of what it is actually worth.”

“So, if some corporation has been secretly wanting to buy it,” commented Katherine, “things could not have worked out better for the corporation if they had been planned.”

She came to a sudden pause, and stood gazing at her father, her lips slowly parting.

“It could not have worked out better for the corporation if it had been planned,” she repeated.

“No,” said Doctor West.

She picked up the Clarion, quickly read the editorial, and laid the paper aside.

“Father!” Her voice was a low, startled cry.

“Yes?”

She moved slowly toward him, in her face a breathless look, and caught his shoulders with tense hands.

“Perhaps it was planned!”

“What?”

Her voice rang out more loudly:

“Perhaps it was planned!”

“But Katherine—what do you mean?”

“Let me think. Let me think.” She began feverishly to pace the room. “Oh, why did I not think of this before!” she cried to herself. “I thought of graft—political corruption—everything else. But it never occurred to me that there might be a plan, a subtle, deep-laid plan, to steal the water-works!”

Doctor West watched her rather dazedly as she went up and down the floor, her brows knit, her lips moving in self-communion. Her connection with the Municipal League in New York had given her an intimate knowledge of the devious means by which public service corporations sometimes gain their end. Her mind flashed over all the situation’s possibilities.

Suddenly she paused before her father, face flushed, triumph in her eyes.

“Father, it was planned!”

“Eh?” said he.

“Father,” she demanded excitedly, “do you know what the great public service corporations are doing now?” Her words rushed on, not waiting for an answer. “They have got hold of almost all the valuable public utilities in the great cities, and now they are turning to a fresh field—the small cities. Westville is a rich chance in a small way. It has only thirty thousand inhabitants now. But it is growing. Some day it will have fifty thousand—a hundred thousand.”

“That’s what people say.”

“If a private company could get hold of the water-works, the system would not only be richly profitable at once, but it would be worth a fortune as the city grows. Now if a company, a clever company, wanted to buy in the water-works, what would be their first move?”

“To make an offer, I suppose.”

“Never! Their first step would be to try to make the people want to sell. And how would they try to make the people want to sell?”

“Why—why——”

“By making the water-works fail!” Her excitement was mounting; she caught his shoulders. “Fail so badly that the people would be disgusted, just as they now are, and willing to sell at any price. And now, father—and now, father—” he could feel her quivering all over—“listen to me! We’re coming to the point! How would they make the water-works fail?”

He could only blink at her.

“They’d make it fail by removing from office, and so disgracing him that everything he had done would be discredited, the one incorruptible man whose care and knowledge had made it a success! Don’t you see, father? Don’t you see?”

“Bless me,” said the old man, “if I know what you’re talking about!”

“With you out of the way, whom they knew they could not corrupt, they could buy under officials to attend to the details of making the water bad and the plant itself a failure—just exactly what has been done. You are not the real victim. You are just an obstruction—something that they had to get out of the way. The real victim is Westville! It’s a plan to rob the city!”

His gray eyes were catching the light that blazed from hers.

“I begin to see,” he said. “It hardly seems possible people would do such things. But perhaps you’re right. What are you going to do?”

“Fight!”

“Fight?” He looked admiringly at her glowing figure. “But if there is a strong company behind all this, for you to fight it alone—it will be an awful big fight!”

“I don’t care how big the fight is!” she cried exultantly. “What has almost broken my heart till now is that there has been no one to fight!”

A shadow fell on the old man’s face.

“But after all, Katherine, it is all only a guess.”

“Of course it is only a guess!” she cried. “But I have tested every other possible solution. This is the only one left, and it fits every known circumstance of the case. It is only a guess—but I’ll stake my life on its being the right guess!” Her voice rose. “Oh, father, we’re on the right track at last! We’re going to clear you! Don’t you ever doubt that. We’re going to clear you!”

There was no resisting the ringing confidence in her voice, the fire of her enthusiasm.

“Katherine!” he cried, and opened his arms.

She rushed into them. “We’re going to clear you, father! And, oh, won’t it be fine! Won’t it be fine!”

For a space they held each other close, then they parted.

“What are you going to do first?” he asked.

“Try to find the person, or corporation, behind the scheme.”

“And how will you do that?”

“First, I shall talk it over with Mr. Blake. You know he told me to come to him if I ever wished his advice. He knows the situation here—he has the interests of Westville at heart—and I know he will help us. I’m not going to lose a second, so I’m off to see him now.”

She rushed downstairs. But she did have to lose a second, and many of them, for when she called up Mr. Blake’s office on the telephone, the answer came back that Mr. Blake was in the capital and would not return till the following day on the one forty-five. It occurred to Katherine to advise with old Hosie Hollingsworth, for during the long summer her blind, childish shrinking had changed to warm liking of the dry old lawyer; and she had discovered, too, that the heresies it had been his delight to utter a generation before—and on which he still prided himself—were now a part of the belief of many an orthodox divine.

But she decided against conferring with Old Hosie. Her adviser and leader must be a man more actively in the current of modern affairs. No, Blake was her great hope, and precious and few as were the hours before the trial, there was nothing for it but to wait for his return.

She went up to her room, and her excited mind, now half inspired, went feverishly over the situation and all who were in any wise concerned in it. She thought of the fifty dollar check from the Acme Filter Company. With her new viewpoint she now understood the whole bewildering business of that check. The company, or at least one of its officers, was somehow in on the deal, and there had been some careful scheming behind the sending of that fifty dollars. The company had been confronted with two obvious difficulties. First, it had to make certain that the check would not be received until after the two thousand dollars was in the hands of her father. Second, the date of the check and the date of the Westville postmark must be earlier than the day the two thousand dollars was delivered—else Doctor West could produce check and envelope to prove that the check had not arrived until after he had already accepted what he thought was the donation, and thus perhaps ruin the whole scheme. What had been done, Katherine now clearly perceived, was that some one, most probably an assistant of her father, had been bought over to look out for the arrival of the letter, to hold it back until the critical day had passed, and then slip it into her father’s neglected mail.

Her mind raced on to further matters, further persons, connected with the situation. When she came to Bruce her hands clenched the arms of her wicker rocking chair. In a flash the whole man was plain to her, and her second great discovery of the day was made.

Bruce was an agent of the hidden corporation!

The motive behind his fierce desire to destroy her father was at last apparent. To destroy Doctor West was his part in the conspiracy. As for his rabid advocacy of municipal ownership, and all his fine talk about the city’s betterment, that was mere sham—merely the virtuous front behind which he could work out his purpose unsuspected. No one could quote the scripture of civic improvement more loudly than the civic despoiler. She always had distrusted him. Now she knew him. Many a time through the night her mind flashed back to him from other matters and she thrilled with a vengeful joy at the thought of tearing aside his mask.

It was a long and feverish night to Katherine, and a long and feverish forenoon. At a quarter to two she was in Blake’s office, which was furnished with just that balance between simplicity and richness appropriate to a growing great man with a constituency half of the city and half of the country. She had sat some time at a window looking down upon the Square, its foliage now a dusty, shrivelled brown, when Blake came in. He had not been told that she was waiting, and at sight of her he came to a sudden pause. But the next instant he had crossed the room and was shaking her hand.

For that first instant Katherine’s eyes and mind, which during the last twenty-four hours had had an almost more than mortal clearness, had an impression that he was strangely agitated. But the moment over, the impression was gone.

He placed a chair for her at the corner of his desk and himself sat down, his dark, strong, handsome face fixed on hers.

“Now, how can I serve you, Katherine?”

There were rings about her eyes, but excitement gave her colour.

“You know that to-morrow is father’s trial?”

“Yes. You must have a hard, hard fight before you.”

“Perhaps not so hard as you may think.” She tried to keep her tugging excitement in leash.

“I hope not,” said he.

“I think it may prove easy—if you will help me.”

“Help you?”

“Yes. I have come to ask you that again.”

“Well—you see—as I told you——”

“But the situation has changed since I first came to you,” she put in quickly, not quite able to restrain a little laugh. “I have found something out!”

He started. “You have found—you say——”

“I have found something out!”

She smiled at him happily, triumphantly.

“And that?” said he.

She leaned forward.

“I do not need to tell you, for you know it, that the big corporations have discovered a new gold mine—or rather, thousands of little gold mines. That all over the country they have gained control, and are working to gain control, of the street-car lines, gas works and other public utilities in the smaller cities.”

“Well?”

She spoke excitedly, putting the case more definitely than it really was, to better the chance of winning his aid.

“Well, I have just discovered that there is a plan on foot, directed by a hidden some one, to seize the water-works of Westville. I have discovered that my father is not guilty. He is the victim of a trick to ruin the water-works and make the people willing to sell. The first thing to do is to find the man behind the scheme. I want you to help me find this man.”

A greenish pallor had overspread his features.

“And you want me—to find this man?” he repeated.

“Yes. I know you will take this up, simply because of your interest in the city. But there is another reason—it would help you in your larger ambition. If you could disclose this scheme, save the city, become the hero of a great popular gratitude, think how it would help your senatorial chances!”

He did not at once reply, but sat staring at her.

“Don’t you see?” she cried.

“I—I see.”

“Why, it would turn your chance for the Senate into a certainty! It would—but, Mr. Blake, what’s the matter?”

“Matter,” he repeated, huskily. “Why—why nothing.”

She gazed at him with deep concern. “But you look almost sick.”

In his eyes there struggled a wild look. Her gaze became fixed upon his face, so strangely altered. In her present high-wrought state all her senses were excited to their intensest keenness.

There was a moment of silence—eyes into eyes. Then she stood slowly up, and one hand reached slowly out and clutched his arm.

“Mr. Blake!” she whispered, in an awed and terrified tone. She continued to stare into his eyes. “Mr. Blake!” she repeated.

She felt a tensing of his body, as of a man who seeks to master himself with a mighty effort. He tried to smile, though his greenish pallor did not leave him.

“It is my turn,” he said, “to ask what is the matter with you, Katherine.”

“Mr. Blake!” She loosed her hold upon his arm, and shrank away.

He rose.

“What is the matter?” he repeated. “You seem upset. I suppose it is the nervous strain of to-morrow’s trial.”

In her face was stupefied horror.

“It is what—what I have discovered.”

“What you call your discovery would be most valuable, if true. But it is just a dream, Katherine—a crazy, crazy dream.”

She still was looking straight into his eyes.

“Mr. Blake, it is true,” she said slowly, almost breathlessly. “For I have found the man behind the plan.”

“Indeed! And who?”

“I think you know him, Mr. Blake.”

“I?”

“Better than any one else.”

His smile had left him.

“Who?”

She continued to stare at him for a moment in silence. Then she slowly raised her arm and pointed at him.

The silence continued for several moments, each gazing at the other. He had put one hand upon his desk and was leaning heavily upon it. He looked like a man sick unto death. But soon a shiver ran through him; he swallowed, gripped himself in a strong control, and smiled again his strained, unnatural smile.

“Katherine, Katherine,” he tried to say it reprovingly and indulgently, but there was a quaver in his voice. “You have gone quite out of your head!”

“It is true!” she cried. “All unintentionally I have followed one of the oldest of police expedients. I have suddenly confronted the criminal with his crime, and I have surprised his guilt upon his face!”

“What you say is absurd. I can explain it only on the theory that you are quite out of your mind.”

“Never before was I so much in it!”

In this moment when she felt that the hidden enemy she had striven so long to find was at last revealed to her, she felt more of anguish than of triumph.

“Oh, how could you do such a thing, Mr. Blake?” she burst out. “How could you do it?”

He shook his head, and tried to smile at her perversity—but the smile was a wan failure.

“I see—I see!” she cried in her pain. “It is just the old story. A good man rises to power through being the champion of the people—and, once in power, the opportunities, the temptation, are too much for him. But I never—no, never!—thought that such a thing would happen with you!”

He strove for the injured air of the misjudged old friend.

“Again I must say that I can only explain your charges by supposing that you are out of your head.”

“Here in Westville you believe it is not woman’s business to think about politics,” Katherine went on, in her voice of pain. “But I could not help thinking about them, and watching them. I have lost my faith in the old parties, but I had kept my faith in some of their leaders. I believe some of them honest, devoted, indomitable. And of them all, the one I admired most, ranked highest, was you. And now—and now—oh, Mr. Blake!—to learn that you——”

“Katherine! Katherine!” And he raised his hands with the manner of exasperated, yet indulgent, helplessness.

“Mr. Blake, you know you are now only playing a part! And you know that I know it!” She moved up to him eagerly. “Listen to me,” she pleaded rapidly. “You have only started on this, you have not gone too far to turn back. You have done no real wrong as yet, save to my father, and I know my father will forgive you. Drop your plan—let my father be honourably cleared—and everything will be just as before!”

For a space he seemed shaken by her words. She watched him, breathless, awaiting the outcome of the battle she felt was waging within him.

“Drop the plan—do!—do!—I beg you!” she cried.

His dark face twitched; a quivering ran through his body. Then by a mighty effort he partially regained his mastery.

“There is no plan for me to drop,” he said huskily.

“You still cling to the part you are playing?”

“I am playing no part; you are all wrong about me,” he continued. “Your charges are so absurd that it would be foolish to deny them. They are merely the ravings of an hysterical woman.”

“And this is your answer?”

“That is my answer.”

She gazed at him for a long moment. Then she sighed.

“I’m so sorry!” she said; and she turned away and moved toward the door.

She gave him a parting look, as he stood pale, quivering, yet controlled, behind his desk. In this last moment she remembered the gallant fight this man had made against Blind Charlie Peck; she remembered that fragrant, far-distant night of June when he had asked her to marry him; and she felt as though she were gazing for the last time upon a dear dead face.

“I’m sorry—oh, so sorry!” she said tremulously. “Good-by.” And turning, she walked with bowed head out of his office.