“Not make out a case?”
“To-morrow Doctor West is going to be cleared.”
“Cleared? Cleared?” Mr. Brown stared. “Now what the devil—see here, Blake, how’s that going to happen?”
Blake’s tense figure had leaned forward.
“It’s going to happen, Mr. Brown,” he burst out, with a flashing of his dark eyes, “because I’m tired of doing your dirty work, and the dirty work of the National Electric & Water Company!”
“You mean you’re going to see he’s cleared?”
“I mean I’m going to see he’s cleared!”
“What—you?” ejaculated Mr. Brown, still staring. “Why, only in your letter yesterday you were all for the plan! What’s come over you?”
“If you’d gone through what I’ve just gone through——” Blake abruptly checked his passionate reference to his scene with Katherine. “I say enough when I say that I’m going to see that Doctor West is cleared. There you have it.”
No further word was spoken for a moment. The two men, leaning toward each other, gazed straight into one another’s eyes. Blake’s powerful, handsome face was blazing and defiant. The fatherly kindness had disappeared from the other, and it was keen and hard.