“Of course you know about father.”
He nodded. “And I do not need to say, Katherine, how very, very sorry I am.”
“I was certain of your sympathy. Things look black on the surface for him, but I want you to know that he is innocent.”
“I am relieved to be assured of that,” he said, hesitatingly. “For, frankly, as you say, things do look black.”
She leaned forward and spoke rapidly, her hands tightly clasped.
“I have come to see you, Mr. Blake, because you have always been our friend—my friend, and a kinder friend than a young girl had any right to expect—because I know you have the ability to bring out the truth no matter how dark the circumstantial evidence may seem. I have come, Mr. Blake, to ask you, to beg you, to be my father’s lawyer.”
He stared at her, and his face grew pale.
“To be your father’s lawyer?” he repeated.
“Yes, yes—to be my father’s lawyer.”
He turned in his chair and looked out to where the fountain was flinging its iridescent drapery to the wind. She gazed at his strong, clean-cut profile in breathless expectation.