Love gave her a new cause for jubilation over her last night’s discovery. Victory, should she win it, and win it before election, had now an added value—it would help the man she loved. But as she thought over her discovery, she realized that while she might create a scandal with it, it was not sufficient evidence nor the particular evidence that she desired. Blake and Peck would both deny the meeting, and against Blake’s denial her word would count for nothing, either in court or before the people of Westville. And she could not be present at another conference with two or three witnesses, for the pair had last night settled all matters and had agreed that it would be unnecessary to meet again. Her discovery, she perceived more clearly than on the night before, was not so much evidence as the basis for a more enlightened and a more hopeful investigation.
Another matter, one that had concerned her little while Bruce had held but a dubious place in her esteem, now flashed into her mind and assumed a large importance. The other party, as she knew, was using Bruce’s friendship for her as a campaign argument against him; not on the platform of course—it never gained that dignity—but in the street, and wherever the followers of the hostile camps engaged in political skirmish. Its sharpest use was by good housewives, with whom suffrage could be exercised solely by influencing their husbands’ ballots. “What, vote for Mr. Bruce! Don’t you know he’s a friend of that woman lawyer? A man who can see anything in that Katherine West is no fit man for mayor!”
All this talk, Katherine now realized, was in some degree injuring Bruce’s candidacy. With a sudden pain at the heart she now demanded of herself, would it be fair to the man she loved to continue this open intimacy? Should not she, for his best interests, urge him, require him, to see her no more?
She was in the midst of this new problem, when her Aunt Rachel brought her in a telegram. She read it through, and on the instant the problem fled her mind. She lay and thought excitedly—hour after hour—and her old plans altered where they had been fixed, and took on definite form where previously they had been unsettled.
The early afternoon found her in the office of old Hosie Hollingsworth.
“What do you think of that?” she demanded, handing him the telegram.
Old Hosie read it with a puzzled look. Then slowly he repeated it aloud:
“‘Bouncing boy arrived Tuesday morning. All doing well. John.’” He raised his eyes to Katherine. “I’m always glad to see people lend the census a helping hand,” he drawled. “But who in Old Harry is John?”
“Mr. Henry Manning. The New York detective I told you about.”