ve you."

"You still love me?" she whispered.

"I still love you."

She stared at him.

"And yet all these months you have fought against me!"

"I have not fought against _you_," he said. "Somehow, I got started
in this way, and I have fought to win--have fought against exposure,
against defeat."

"And you still love me?" she murmured, still amazed.

As she gazed at him there shot into her a poignant pang of pity for
this splendid figure, tottering on the edge of the abyss. For an
instant she thought only of him.

"You asked me a moment ago to suppress the paper," she cried
impulsively. "Shall I do it?"

"I now ask nothing," said he.

"No--no--I can't suppress the paper!" she said in anguish. "That would
be to leave father disgraced, and Mr. Bruce disgraced, and the
city----But what are you going to do?"

"I do not know. This has come so suddenly. I have had no time to
think."

"You must at least have time to think! If you had an hour--two hours?"

There was a momentary flash of hope in his eyes.

"If I had an hour----"

"Then we'll delay the paper!" she cried.

She sprang excitedly to the telephone upon Blake's desk. The next
instant she had Billy Harper on the wire, Blake watching her,
motionless in his tracks.

"Mr. Harper," she said, "it is now half-past ten. I want you to hold
the paper back till eleven-thirty.... What's that?"

She listened for a moment, then slowly hung up the receiver. She did
not at once turn round, but when she did her face was very white.

"Well?" Blake asked.

"I'm sorry," she said, barely above a whisper. "The paper has been
upon the street for ten minutes."

They gazed at one another for several moments, both motionless, both
without a word. Then thin, sharp cries penetrated the room. Blake's
lips parted.

"What is that?" he asked mechanically.

Katherine crossed and raised a window. Through it came shrill, boyish
voices:

"Extry! Extry! All about the great Blake conspiracy!"

These avant couriers of Blake's disgrace sped onward down the avenue.
Katherine turned slowly back to Blake. He still stood in the same
posture, leaning heavily upon an arm that rested on his mahogany desk.
He did not speak. Nor was there anything that Katherine could say.

It was for but a moment or two that they stood in this strained
silence. Then a dim outcry sounded from the centre of the town. In
but a second, it seemed, this outcry had mounted to a roar.

"It is the crowd-