Counsel for the Defense

window, taking in the tarnished dome of the Court House that rose lustreless above the elm tops and the heavy-boned farmhors

the idea of a mistake, and began to seek for other explanations. For a space she vacantly watched the workmen tearing

in some large system of corruption! Perhaps this case was the fi

st practices. The idea filled her. She began to burn with a feverish hope. But from the first moment she was sufficient

no one to whom she could turn for information. Her father she knew could be of little service; expert though he was in his specialty, he was blind to evil in men. As for Blake, she did not

fferent to what the town might think about her. But she was well aware that Old Hosie's prophecy was swift in coming true-that a storm was raging, a storm of her own sex. It should be explained, however, in justice to them, that they forgot the fact, or never really knew it, that she had been forced

ard, brazen, unwomanly young person"-"A disgrace to the town, a disgrace to our sex"-"Think of the example she sets to impressionable young girls; they'll want

fiance came into her manner. But she went straigh

unexpected quarter, an informant stepped out upon her stage. Several times Old Hosie Hollingsworth had spoken casually when they had

is dramatic criticisms, calls an uproarious and unprece

ntly interested to notice

me long ago if there'd been any leading citizen unstingy enough to have donated the tar. Then, too, I've had a little money, and going through the needle's eye is easy business compared to losing the respect of Westville so long as yo

very marked enthusiasm, took it. Then her eyes gleam

with political condi

at my office window looking down on the political circus

d forward

now how thi

a

or corruption going on?" She flushed. "Of course

was in power, there was

ut now?" she

e run Blind Charlie out of business ten years

, I

ars Westville has been text, sermon, and do

hout Mr. Blake knowing it? Could not Mr.

mer. But though Charlie's still the boss of his party, he controls no offices, and has got no real power. He's as helpless as Satan was after he'd been kicked out of heaven and bef

rrupt politics in Westville?"

'em!" said Old Ho

s. While she had entertained suspicion of there being corruption, she had several times cons

rds of her father's department, on file in the Court House, seeking some item that would cast light upon the puzzle. She wen

she found nothing. Then, in a flash, an overlooked point recurred to her. The trouble, so went her the

ontained the gift-but of the donation itself he knew no more. She interviewed Doctor Sherman; he had heard Mr. Marcy refer to a donation but knew nothing about the matter. She tried to get in communication with Mr. Marcy, only to l

nted with the case. In exculpation of himself and his company, he said that they were constantly being held up by every varie

thought this 'present' was in reality a donation to the

eve the

eagerly. "Would you make that statement at the tria

should explain that the 'present' and the do

the donation?" Kather

nt," said

en

myself," wa

ck, if it had really been sent? Home again, she ransacked her father's desk w

aid. "I never was much of a hand to keep up with my letters, and for the few

and was holding in her hands a fifty d

t?" she asked sharply. "The date

fteenth

May. The envelope shows it was recei

what of

on can charge, and we cannot disprove the charge, that the real donation was already i

ents the struggle continued fiercely. But she had made a vow with herself when she had entered law that she was going to keep free from the trickery and dishonour

we'll send it in to th

or the prosecution, if it so desired, could introduce witnesses to prove that the donation had been sent.

the case-and that bearing seemed to Katherine indirect-was that, since early June, the service of the water-works had steadily been deteriorating. There was frequently a shortage in the supply, and the filtering plant, the direct cause of Doctor West's disgrace, had proved so complete a failure that its use had been discontinued. The water was often mur

e case so wearing on the soul was that she was groping in the dark. She was fighting an invisible enemy, even though it was no more than a misunderstanding-an enemy whom, strive as she would, she could not clutch, with whom she co

he were out of it all, and could just rest, and be friends with every one. In such moods it would creep coldly in upon her that there could be but one solution to the case-that after all her father must b

upon their shrivelling corn, watched with vain hope for a rescuing cloud to darken the clear, hard, brilliant heavens. At length the summer burned to its close; the opening day of the September ter

the long strain, she saw her father's name on the front page of the Express. She bought a copy. In the centre of the first page, in a "box" and set in heavy-faced t

tacks, and the virulence of these had helped keep the town wrought up against Doctor West. Moreover, Katherine despised Bruce as a powerful, ruthless, demagogic hypocrite. And to her hostility against him in her father's behalf and to he

home all a-tremble. Her aunt met her in the hall as she was laying off

e think is he

hanically, her wrath too high

Upstairs wit

cried Ka

he stairway. The next instant she flung open her father's door, and walked

doing here?"

and his square-hewn face l

ther," he returned wi

to confess," exp

" cried K

"His guilt is undoubted, s

flamed

on out of him, in advance of the trial,

essed anger, all the hidden anguish, of th

artless, as to hound an old man as you have hounded my father-and all for the sake of a yellow new

. He did not give back a st

is it? Well, let me tell you," and his gray eyes flashed, and his voice had a crunching tone-"that I believe when you've got an enemy of society down,

rd you are, you first very carefully choose your 'enemy of so

onsider neither his weakness nor his strength. I consider only the fact that your f

I tell you

e that time, Westville was on the verge of making great municipal advances-on the verge of becoming a model and a leader for the small cities of the Middle West. And now all that grand development

im with gli

ditorial to-day in a Westvi

I say!" he

waste-basket. She glared at him, quivering all over,

poseur-of a man who twists the truth to fit his desires-of a man who deals in the ideas that seem to him most profitable-of a man who cares not how poor, how innocent, is the body he uses as a steppin

a man with a temper. Fury was bl

n who has so little taste, so little sense,

!" gasped

wrong. You are unwomanly. You are unsexed. Your pretensions as a lawyer are utterly preposterous, as

only a heartless, conceited cad! Just wait-I'll show you what your judgment of me is worth! I am going to clear my father! I am going to make this Westville that condemns me kneel at my feet! and as f

oking. For a space he gazed at her. Then with

ofa, and her whole body shook with silent sobs. Doctor West, first gazing at her a little helplessly, sat down upon t

y he sai

'll do everyt

s. Your trial is two days off-and, father, I haven't one bit of evidence-I don't know what we're going to

man continued to sit beside her, so