Katherine shrank back.
"Oh!" she whispered. "Oh!" Then her slender body tensed, and her dark eyes flashed fire. "Father accept a bribe! It"s a lie! A lie!"
"It hardly seems true to me, either."
"It"s a lie!" repeated Katherine. "But is he--is he locked up?"
"They let me go his bail."
Again Katherine caught her aunt"s arm.
"Come--tell me all about it!"
"Please don"t make me. I--I can"t."
"But I must know!"
"It"s in the newspapers--they"re on the centre-table."
Katherine turned to the table and seized a paper. At sight of the sheet she had picked up, the old woman hurried across to her in dismay.
"Don"t read that _Express_!" she cried, and she sought to draw the paper from Katherine"s hands. "Read the _Clarion_. It"s ever so much kinder."
But Katherine had already seen the headline that ran across the top of the _Express_. It staggered her. She gasped at the blow, but she held on to the paper.
"I"ll read the worst they have to say," she said.
Her aunt dropped into a chair and covered her eyes to avoid sight of the girl"s suffering. The story, in its elements, was a commonplace to Katherine; in her work with the Munic.i.p.al League she had every few days met with just such a tale as this. But that which is a commonplace when strangers are involved, becomes a tragedy when loved ones are its actors. So, as she read the old, old story, Katherine trembled as with mortal pain.
But sickening as was the story in itself, it was made even more agonizing to her by the manner of the _Express"s_ telling. Bruce"s typewriter had never been more impa.s.sioned. The story was in heavy-faced type, the lines two columns wide; and in a "box" in the very centre of the first page was an editorial denouncing Doctor West and demanding for him such severe punishment as would make future traitors forever fear to sell their city. Article and editorial were rousing and vivid, brilliant and bitter--as mercilessly stinging as a salted whip-lash cutting into bare flesh.
Katherine writhed with the pain of it. "Oh!" she cried. "It"s brutal!
Brutal! Who could have had the heart to write like that about father?"
"The editor, Arnold Bruce," answered her aunt.
"Oh, he"s a brute! If I could tell him to his face----" Her whole slender being flamed with anger and hatred, and she crushed the paper in a fierce hand and flung it to the floor.
Then, slowly, her face faded to an ashen gray. She steadied herself on the back of a chair and stared in desperate, fearful supplication at the bowed figure of the older woman.
"Auntie?" she breathed.
"Yes?"
"Auntie"--eyes and voice were pleading--"auntie, the--the things--this paper says--they never happened, did they?"
The old head nodded.
"Oh! oh!" she gasped. She wavered, sank stricken into a chair, and buried her face in her arms. "Poor father!" she moaned brokenly. "Poor father!"
There was silence for a moment, then the old woman rose and gently put a hand upon the quivering young shoulder.
"Don"t, dear! Even if it did happen, I can"t believe it. Thy father----"
At that moment, overhead, there was a soft noise, as of feet placed upon the floor. Katherine sprang up.
"Father!" she breathed. There began a restless, slippered pacing.
"Father!" she repeated, and sprang for the stairway and rapidly ran up.
At her father"s door she paused, hand over her heart. She feared to enter to her father--feared lest she should find his head bowed in acknowledged shame. But she summoned her strength and noiselessly opened the door. It was a large room, a hybrid of bedroom and study, whose drawn shades had dimmed the brilliant morning into twilight. An open side door gave a glimpse of gla.s.s jars, bellying retorts and other paraphernalia of the laboratory.
Walking down the room was a tall, stooping, white-haired figure in a quilted dressing-gown. He reached the end of the room, turned about, then sighted her in the doorway.
"Katherine!" he cried with quavering joy, and started toward her; but he came abruptly to a pause, hesitating, accused man that he was, to make advances.
Her sickening fear was for the instant swept away by a rising flood of love. She sprang forward and threw her arms about his neck.
"Father!" she sobbed. "Oh, father!"
She felt his tears upon her forehead, felt his body quiver, and felt his hand gently stroke her back.
"You"ve heard--then?" he asked, at length.
"Yes--from the papers."
He held her close, but for a moment did not speak.
"It isn"t a--a very happy celebration--I"ve prepared for you."
She could only cry convulsively, "Poor father!"
"You never dreamt," he quavered, "your old father--could do a thing like this--did you?"
She did not answer. She trembled a moment longer on his shoulder; then, slowly and with fear, she lifted her head and gazed into his face. The face was worn--she thrilled with pain to see how sadly worn it was!--but though tear-wet and working with emotion, it met her look with steadiness. It was the same simple, kindly, open face that she had known since childhood.
There was a sudden wild leaping within her. She clutched his shoulders, and her voice rang out in joyous conviction:
"Father--you are not guilty!"
"You believe in me, then?"
"You are not guilty!" she cried with mounting joy.
He smiled faintly.
"Why, of course not, my child."
"Oh, father!" And again she caught him in a close embrace.