replied Katherine, trying to speak calmly.

"You must excuse me. With Elsie so sick, I cannot talk."

She stood very straight before him. Her eyes never left his face.

"We must talk just the same," she returned. "When did you come home?"

"Last night."

"Why did you not let your friends know of your return? All day, in
fact for several days, they have been sending telegrams to every place
where they could conceive your being."

He did not answer.

"It looks very much as if you were trying to hide."

Again he did not reply.

"It looks very much," she steadily pursued, "as if your sister
discharged the nurse and the servant in order that you might hide here
in your own home without risk of discovery."

Still he did not answer.

"You need not reply to that question, for the reply is obvious. I
guessed the meaning of the nurse's discharge as soon as I heard of it.
I guessed that you were secretly hovering over Elsie, while all
Westville thought you were hundreds of miles away. But tell me, how
did you learn that Elsie was sick?"

He hesitated, then swallowed.

"I saw a notice of it in a little country paper."

"Ah, I thought so."

She moved forward and leaned across the desk. Their eyes were no more
than a yard apart.

"Tell me," she said quietly, "why did you slip into town by night? Why
are you hiding in your own home?"

A tremor ran through his slender frame. With an effort he tried to
take the upperhand.

"You must excuse me," he said, with an attempt at sharp dignity. "I
refuse to be cross-examined."

"Then I will answer for you. The reason, Doctor Sherman, is that you
have a guilty conscience."

"That is not----"

"Do not lie," she interrupted quickly. "You realize what you have
done, you are afraid it may become public, you are afraid of the
consequences to yourself--and that is why you slipped back in the dead
of night and lie hidden like a fugitive in your own house."

A spasm of agony crossed his face.

"For God's sake, tell me what you want and leave me!"

"I want you to clear my father."

"Clear your father?" he cried. "And how, if you please?"

"By confessing that he is innocent."

"When he is guilty!"

"You know he is not."

"He's guilty--he's guilty, I tell you! Besides," he added, wildly,
"don't you see that if I proclaim him innocent I proclaim myself a
perjured witness?"

She leaned a little farther across the desk.

"Is not that exactly what you are, Doctor Sher