adoptive liking one acquires for the place one chooses from among all others for the passing of one’s life; but her affection remained warm and steadfast with this old town of her girlhood.

“Oh, but it feels good to be back in Westville again!” she cried to the cabman.

“I reckon it must. I guess it’s all of two years sence you been home.”

“Two years, yes. It’s going to be a great celebration this afternoon, isn’t it?”

“Yes’m—very big”—and he hastily struck the ancient steed. “Get-ep there, Jenny!”

Mr. Huggins’s mare turned off Station Avenue, and Katharine excitedly stared ahead beneath the wide-boughed maples for the first glimpse of her home. At length it came into view—one of those big, square, old-fashioned wooden houses, built with no perceptible architectural idea beyond commodious shelter. She had thought her father might possibly stumble out to greet her, but no one stood waiting at the paling gate.

She sprang lightly from the carriage as it drew up beside the curb, and leaving Mr. Huggins to follow with her bag she hurried up the brick-paved path to the house. As she crossed the porch, a slight, gray, Quakerish little lady, with a white kerchief folded across her breast, pushed open the screen door. Her Katherine gathered into her arms and kissed repeatedly.

“I’m so glad to see you, auntie!” she cried. “How are you?”

“Very well,” the old woman answered in a thin, tremulous voice. “How is thee?”

“Me? Oh, you know nothing’s ever wrong with me!” She laughed in her buoyant young strength. “But you, auntie?” She grew serious. “You look very tired—and very, very worn and worried. But I suppose it’s the strain of father’s headache—poor father! How is he?”

“I—I think he’s feeling some better,” the old woman faltered. “He’s still lying down.”

They had entered the big, airy sitting-room. Katherine’s hat and coat went flying upon the couch.

“Now, before I so much as ask you a question, or tell you a thing, Aunt Rachel, I’m going up to see dear old father.”

She made for the stairway, but her aunt caught her arm in consternation.

“Wait, Katherine! Thee musn’t see him yet.”

“Why, what’s the matter?” Katherine asked in surprise.

“It—it would be better for him if thee didn’t disturb him.”

“But, auntie—you know no one can soothe him as I can when he has a headache!”

“But he’s asleep just now. He didn’t sleep a minute all night.”

“Then of course I’ll wait.” Katherine turned back. “Has he suffered much——”

She broke off. Her aunt was gazing at her in wide-eyed, helpless misery.

“Why—why—what’s the matter, auntie?”

Her aunt did not answer her.

“Tell me! What is it? What’s wrong?”

Still the old woman did not speak.

“Something has happened to father!” cried Katherine. She clutched her aunt’s thin shoulders. “Has something happened to father?”

The old woman trembled all over, and tears started from her mild eyes.

“Yes,” she quavered.

“But what is it?” Katherine asked frantically. “Is he very sick?”

“It’s—it’s worse than that.”

“Please! What is it then?”

“I haven’t the heart to tell thee,” she said piteously, and she sank into a chair and covered her face.

Katherine caught her arm and fairly shook her in the intensity of her demand.

“Tell me! I can’t stand this another instant!”

“There—there isn’t going to be any celebration.”

“No celebration?”

“Yesterday—thy father—was arrested.”

“Arrested!”

“And indicted for accepting a bribe.”

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 Municipal 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 impassioned. 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