herine--why--why--I don't know what you think of us,
but--but----" She could stammer out no more, but stood in the doorway
in distressed uncertainty.

Katherine's answer was to stretch out her arms. "Elsie!" Instantly
the two old friends were in a close embrace.

"I haven't slept, Katherine," sobbed Mrs. Sherman, "for thinking of
what you would think----"

"I think that, whatever has happened, I love you just the same."

"Thank you for saying it, Katherine." Mrs. Sherman gazed at her in
tearful gratitude. "I can't tell you how we have suffered over
this--this affair. Oh, if you only knew!"

It was instinctive with Katherine to soothe the pain of others, though
suffering herself. "I am certain Doctor Sherman acted from the highest
motives," she assured the young wife. "So say no more about it."

They had entered the little sitting-room, hung with soft white muslin
curtains. "But at the same time, Elsie, I cannot believe my father
guilty," Katherine went on. "And though I honour your husband, why,
even the noblest man can be mistaken. My hope of proving my father's
innocence is based on the belief that Doctor Sherman may somehow have
made a mistake. At any rate, I'd like to talk over his evidence with
him."

"He's trying to work on his sermon, though he's too worn to think.
I'll bring him right in."

She passed through a door into the study, and a moment later reentered
with Doctor Sherman. The present meeting would have been painful to
an ordinary person; doubly so was it to such a hyper-sensitive nature.
The young clergyman stood hesitant just within the doorway, his usual
pallor greatly deepened, his thin fingers intertwisted--in doubt how
to greet Katherine till she stretched out her hand to him.

"I want you to understand, Katherine dear," little Mrs. Sherman put in
quickly, with a look of adoration at her husband, "that Edgar reached
the decision to take the action he did only after days of agony. You
know, Katherine, Doctor West was always as kind to me as another
father, and I loved him almost like one. At first I begged Edgar not
to do anything. Edgar walked the floor for nights--suffering!--oh, how
you suffered, Edgar!"

"Isn't it a little incongruous," said Doctor Sherman, smiling wanly at
her, "for the instrument that struck the blow to complain, in the
presence of the victim, of _his_ suffering?"

"But I want her to know it!" persisted the wife. "She must know it to
do you justice, dear! It seem