narrow,
stenchy alley were the quiet opening of a new act in the drama that
was played that year in Westville. The next day a dozen cases were
reported, and now the doctors unhesitatingly pronounced them typhoid.
The number mounted rapidly. Soon there were a hundred. Soon there was
an epidemic. And the Spectre showed no deference to rank. It not only
stalked into the tenements of River Court and Railroad Alley--and laid
its felling finger on starveling children and drink-shattered men--It
visited the large and airy homes on Elm and Maple Streets and Wabash
Avenue, where those of wealth and place were congregated.

In Westville was the Reign of Terror. Haggard doctors were ever on the
go, snatching a bite or a moment's sleep when chance allowed. Till
then, modern history had been reckoned in Westville from the town's
invasion by factories, or from that more distant time when lightning
had struck the Court House. But those milestones of time are to-day
forgotten. Local history is now dated, and will be for many a decade,
from the "Days of Fever" and the related events which marked that
epoch.

In the early days of the epidemic Katherine heard one morning that
Elsie Sherman had just been stricken. She had seen little of Elsie
during the last few weeks; the strain of their relation was too great
to permit the old pleasure in one another's company; but at this news
she hastened to Elsie's bedside. Her arrival was a God-send to the
worn and hurried Doctor Woods, who had just been called in. She
telegraphed to Indianapolis for a nurse; she telegraphed to a sister
of Doctor Sherman to come; and she herself undertook the care of Elsie
until the nurse should arrive.

"What do you think of her case, Doctor?" she asked anxiously when
Doctor Woods dropped in again later in the day.

He shook his head.

"Mrs. Sherman is very frail."

"Then you think----"

"I'm afraid it will be a hard fight. I think we'd better send for her
husband."

Despite her sympathy for Elsie, Katherine thrilled with the
possibility suggested by the doctor's words. Here was a situation that
should bring Doctor Sherman out of his hiding, if anything could bring
him. Once home, and unnerved by the sight of his wife precariously
balanced between life and death, she was certain that he would break
down and confess whatever he might know.

She asked Elsie for her husband's whereabouts, but Elsie answered that
she had had letters but that he had never g