It was a light sentence—but enough to blacken an honest name for life, enough to break a sensitive heart like Doctor West’s.
A little later Katherine, holding an arm of her father tightly within her own, walked with him and fat, good-natured Sheriff Nichols over to the old brick county jail. And yet a little later, erect, eyes straight before her, she came down the jail steps and started homeward.
As she was passing along the Square, immediately before her Harrison Blake came out of his stairway and started across the sidewalk to his waiting car. Discretion urged her to silence; but passion was the stronger. She stepped squarely up before him and flashed him a blazing look.
“Well—and so you think you’ve won!” she cried in a low voice.
His colour changed, but instantly he was master of himself.
“What, Katherine, you still persist in that absurd idea of yesterday.”
“Oh, drop that pretence! We know each other too well for that!” She moved nearer and, trembling from head to foot, her passionate defiance burst all bounds. “You think you have won, don’t you!” she hotly cried. “Well, let me tell you that this affair is not merely a battle that was to-day won and ended! It’s a war—and I have just begun to fight!”
And sweeping quickly past him, she walked on into Main Street and down it through the staring crowds—very erect, a red spot in either cheek, her eyes defiantly meeting every eye.