Clancy drew away from her hostess. She looked at the judge, then back again at Mrs. Walbrough, and then once again at the judge.
"Well?" she demanded.
"It isn't well," said the judge.
"But I thought you knew," said Clancy. "Miss Henderson gave me your message. And that Spofford man saw me to-day, and told me that he didn't believe I had anything to do——" She paused, eyeing the judge keenly. She refused to be frightened. She wasn't going to be frightened again.
"Of course he doesn't! Spofford went to Vandervent this forenoon. But—the newspapers," said the judge.
Clancy's lips rounded with an unuttered "Oh." She sank down upon a chair; her hands dropped limply in her lap.
"What do they know?" she demanded.
The judge's reply was bitter.
"'Know?' Nothing! But a newspaper doesn't have to know anything to make trouble! If it merely suspects, that's enough. Look!"
He unfolded an evening newspaper and handed it to Clancy. There, black as ink could make it, spreading the full length of the page, stood the damnable statement,