“Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy.”
“It’s nothing at all, Miss,” said he with a grandiloquent gesture of a hairy, bediamonded hand. “Glad to do it.”
She slipped her arm through the young editor’s.
“And now, Mr. Harper, we must go.”
Billy Harper vaguely understood the situation and there was a trace of awakening shame in his husky voice.
“Are you sure—you want to be seen with me—like this?”
“I must, whether I want to or not,” she said briefly; and she led him through the side door out into the frosty night.
The period that succeeded will ever remain in Katherine’s mind as matchless in her life for agonized suspense. She was ever crying out frantically to herself, why did this man she led have to be in such a condition at this the time when he was needed most? While she rapidly walked her drenched and shivering charge through the deserted back streets, the enthusiasm of Court House Square reverberated maddeningly in her ears. She realized how rapidly time was flying—and yet, aflame with desire for action as she was, all she could do was to lead this brilliant, stupefied creature to and fro, to and fro. She wondered if she would be able to bring him to his senses in time to be of service. To her impatience, which made an hour of every moment, it seemed she never would. But her hope was all on him, and so doggedly she kept him going.
Presently he began to lurch against her less heavily and less frequently; and soon, his head hanging low in humiliation, he started shiveringly to mumble out an abject apology. She cut him short.
“We’ve no time for apologies. There’s work to be done. Is your head clear enough to understand?”