e new-fangled toys, averred the
street corners, that runs like a miracle while the paint is on it and
then with a whiz and a whir goes all to thunder.

But to this mere by-product of the case Katherine gave little thought.
She had to keep desperately upon the case itself. At times, feeling
herself so alone, making no inch of headway, her spirits sank very low
indeed. What made the 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 could not grapple. Again
and again she prayed for a foe in the open. Had there been a fight, no
matter how bitter, her part would have been far, far easier--for in
fight there is action and excitement and the lifting hope of victory.

It took courage to work as she did, weary week upon weary week, and
discover nothing. It took courage not to slink away at the town's
disapprobation. At times, in the bitterness of her heart, she wished
she 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 be
guilty. But when she would go home and look into his thoughtful,
unworldy old face, that solution would instantly become impossible;
and she would cast out doubt and despair and renew her determination.

The weeks dragged heavily on--hot and dusty after the first of July,
and so dry that out in the country the caked earth was a fine network
of zigzagging fissures, and the farmers, gazing despondently 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 term of court was close
at hand. But still the case stood just as on the day Katherine had
stepped so joyously from the Limited. The evidence of Sherman was
unshaken. The charges of Bruce had no answer.

One afternoon--her father's case was set for two days later--as
Katherine left her office, desperate, not knowing which way to turn,
her nerves worn fine and thin by 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 type, was
an editorial in Bruce's most rousing style, trying her fathe