Counsel for the Defense Part 47

"Yes, I know you are after me! I know you are having me followed--spied upon!" There was a biting, contemptuous edge to his tone. "Even if I were guilty, do you think I would be afraid of exposure from you? Oh, I know the man you have sleuthing about on my trail. Elijah Stone! And I once thought you were a clever girl!"

"You refuse, then?" she said slowly.

"I do! And I defy you! If your accusations against me are true, go out and proclaim them to the city. I'm willing to stand for whatever happens!"

She regarded his flushed, defiant face. She perceived clearly that she had failed, that it was useless to try further.

"Very well," she said slowly. "But I want you to remember in the future that I have given you this chance; that I have given you your choice, and you have chosen."

"And I tell you again that I defy you!"

"You are a more hardened man, or a more desperate man, than I thought," said she.

He did not reply upon the instant, but sat gazing into her searching eyes. Before he could speak, the telephone at his elbow began to ring.

He picked it up.

"h.e.l.lo! Yes, this is Mr. Blake.... Her temperature is the same, you say?... No, I have not had an answer yet. I expect a telegram any minute. I'll let you know as soon as it comes. Good-by."

"Is some one sick?" Katherine asked, as he hung up the receiver.

"My mother," he returned briefly, his recent defiance all gone.

Katherine, too, for the moment, forgot their conflict.

"I did not know it. There are so many cases, you know. Who is attending her?"

"Doctor Hunt, temporarily," he answered. "But these Westville doctors are all amateurs in serious cases. I've telegraphed for a specialist--the best man I could hear of--Doctor Brenholtz of Chicago."

His defiance suddenly returned.

"If I have seemed to you worn, unnerved, now you know the real cause!"

he said.

"So," she remarked slowly, "the disaster you have brought on Westville has struck your own home!"

His face twitched convulsively.

"I believe we have finished our conversation. Good afternoon."

Katherine rose.

"And if she dies, you know who will have killed her."

He sprang up.

"Go! Go!" he cried.

But she remained in her tracks, looking him steadily in the eyes.

While they stood so, the stenographer entered and handed him a telegram. He tore it open, glanced it through, and stood staring at it in a kind of stupor.

"My G.o.d!" he breathed.

He tore the yellow sheet across, dropped the pieces in the waste-basket and began to pace his room, on his face a wild, dazed look. He seemed to have forgotten Katherine's presence. But a turn brought her into his vision. He stopped short.

"You still here?"

"I was waiting to hear if Doctor Brenholtz was coming," she said.

He stared at her a moment. Then he crossed to his desk, took the two fragments of the telegram from his waste-basket and held them out to her.

"There is what he says."

She took the telegram and read:

"No use my coming. Best man on typhoid in West lives in your own town. See Dr. David West."

Katherine laid down the yellow pieces and raised her eyes to Blake's white, strained face. The two gazed at each other for a long moment.

"Well?" he said huskily.

"Well?" she quietly returned.

"Do you think I can get him?"

"How can you get a man who is serving a sentence in jail?"

"If I--if I----" He could not get the words out.

"Yes. If you confess--clear him--get him out of jail--of course he will treat the case."

"I didn't mean that! G.o.d!" he cried, "is confession of a thing I never did the fee you exact for saving a life?"

"What, you still hold out?"

"I'm not guilty! I tell you, I'm not guilty!"

"Then you'll not confess?"

"Never! Never!"

"Not even to save your mother?"

"She's sick--very sick. But she's not going to die--I'll not let her die! Your father does not have to be cleared to get out of jail. In this emergency I can arrange to get him out for a time on parole. What do you say?"

She gazed at the desperate, wildly expectant figure. A little s.h.i.+ver ran through her.

"What do you say?" he repeated.

"There can be but one answer," she replied. "My father is too big a man to demand any price for his medical skill--even the restoration of his honest name by the man who stole it. Parole him, and he will go instantly to Mrs. Blake."