this sudden apparition.

"I--I believe he is."

"Please tell him at once that I wish to see him."

He fumbled the white wall of his lofty collar with an embarrassed
hand.

"Excuse me, Miss West, but the fact is, I'm afraid he can't see you."

"Give him my name and tell him I simply _must_ see him."

The clerk's embarrassment waxed greater.

"I--I guess I should have said it the other way around," he stammered.
"I'm afraid you won't want to see him."

"Why not?"

"The fact is--he's pretty much cut up, you know--and he's been so
worried that--that--well, the plain fact is," he blurted out, "Mr.
Harper has been drinking."

"To-night?"

"Yes."

"Much?"

"Well--I'm afraid quite a little."

"But he's here?"

"He's in the bar-room."

Katherine's heart had been steadily sinking.

"I must see him anyhow!" she said desperately. "Please call him out!"

The clerk hesitated, in even deeper embarrassment. This affair was
quite without precedent in his career.

"You must call him out--this second! Didn't you hear me?"

"Certainly, certainly."

He came hastily from behind his desk and disappeared through a pair of
swinging wicker doors. After a moment he reappeared, alone, and his
manner showed a degree of embarrassment even more acute.

Katherine crossed eagerly to meet him.

"You found Mr. Harper?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

"I couldn't make him understand. And even if I could,
he's--he's--well," he added with a painful effort, "he's in no
condition for you to talk to, Miss West."

Katherine gazed whitely at the clerk for a moment. Then without a word
she stepped by him and passed through the wicker door. With a glance
she took in the garishly lighted room--its rows of bottles, its
glittering mirrors, its white-aproned bartender, its pair of topers
whose loyalty to the bar was stronger than the lure of oratory and
music at the Square. And there at a table, his head upon his arms, sat
the loosely hunched body of him who was the foundation of all her
present hopes.

She moved swiftly across the sawdusted floor and shook the acting
editor by the shoulder.

"Mr. Harper!" she called into his ear.

She shook him again, and again she called his name.

"Le' me 'lone," he grunted thickly. "Wanter sleep."

She was conscious that the two topers had paused in mid-drink and were
looking her way with a grinning, alcoholic curiosity. She shook the
editor with all her strength.

"Mr. Harper!" she called fierc