Blake did not look up. Manning slipped an arm through the old man’s.
“I’ll go along with you for a little while,” said Manning quietly. “Just to see that you don’t start any trouble.”
As the pair were going out Mr. Brown, who had thus far not said a single word, bent his fatherly figure over Blake.
“Of course, you realize, Mr. Blake, that our relations are necessarily at an end,” he said in a low voice.
“Of course,” Blake said dully.
“I’m very sorry we cannot help you, but of course you realize we cannot afford to be involved in a mess like this. Good night.” And he followed the others out, Old Hosie behind him.
For a space Katherine stood alone, gazing down upon Blake’s bowed and silent figure. Now that it was all over, now that his allies had all deserted him, to see this man whom she had known as so proud, so strong, so admired, with such a boundless future—who had once been her own ideal of a great man—who had once declared himself her lover—to see this man now brought so low, stirred in her a strange emotion, in which there was something of pity, something of sympathy, and a tugging remembrance of the love he long ago had offered.
But the noise of the front door closing upon the men recalled her to herself, and very softly, so as not to disturb him, she started away. Her hand was on the knob, when there sounded a dry and husky voice from behind her.
“Wait, Katherine! Wait!”